An inventive but uneven tale about what people will do to get what they want.
In this debut literary novel, three people from different decades are ensnared in one diabolical plot.
Italy, 1917. Lawrence “Worthy” Worthington, a young, hedonistic soldier fighting in World War I, meets a German field marshal named Baron Memphis von Topheles. The baron grants Worthy eternal life, and all the soldier has to do in exchange is seduce young mothers and deliver them to Memphis. New York City, 1969. Divorced mother of two Sharon Peters finds herself in a hell-themed club in the depths of Greenwich Village. There, she meets the “Master Magician,” Memphis Topheles, who offers her a deal: He will make her young forever as long as she is willing to abandon her children and lure men into his service. California, 2000. James Harris is a young novelist-turned-entrepreneur who dreams of bringing the world together through technology. The only problem is he’s in desperate need of capital. At an investor event at the famous Hearst Castle, he meets Memphis Topheles, known as the Chairman, a venture capitalist wealthy enough to bankroll James’ utopian project. In exchange, he just needs James to travel to the old Revson property in Connecticut—a place James knows for a fact burned down years ago—and convince the woman who lives there to leave her husband. “If you can handle what you are about to step into,” the Chairman tells him, “you will have proven you are capable of surviving anything the business world might throw at you.” James agrees and travels to the old Revson place, though he isn’t sure what he will find there. He’s struck by a car in the property’s driveway, and when he comes to, his body is fine but his memory is damaged. The man and the woman are there, just as the Chairman warned him. But James’ mission proves much more difficult than he could ever have imagined—particularly since the house he’s entered seems to exist outside of time.
Brown’s prose is urgent and economical, as here where James begins to have some suspicions about just what’s going on at the Revson house: “Sharon darted like a deer to get inside, but he got to the door first and blocked her. ‘Tell me who you are, tell me who you are really,’ he said. ‘Let go of me!’ she shouted. ‘Out of my way!’ She thrust her elbow in his side and he buckled, grabbing her down. She fell on top and cried in pain.” The story’s structure is complex and full of surprises. The pleasure of the book is in figuring out how the various pieces of the tale fit together. It’s clear that the author has high literary ambitions—an early scene takes place at a party in Henry Miller’s Big Sur cabin, and classic American writers are referenced throughout—but unfortunately, his characters are thin. Memphis is a cartoon villain, and not in a fun way. In the rare scene where James produces an emotional reaction in readers, it’s a mildly negative one. It’s a shame there isn’t more here for the audience to latch on to, given the puzzlelike imagination that Brown displays.
An inventive but uneven tale about what people will do to get what they want.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 405
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
