Poignant, disturbing, and engaging, with an emotionally and morally complicated protagonist.
Striegel’s historical novel spins the tale of a young immigrant determined to fulfill his father’s dream.
It is 1851 on the Isle of Barra in Scotland, and the members of the McNeil family, along with all of their neighbors, are being evicted from their home by their landlord in violent action known as the Clearances. In cahoots with the English, the Scottish landowners are clawing back land that the locals have lived and farmed on for generations. James and Mary McNeil, along with their 9-year-old son, Murdoch, and 8-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, barely escape the carnage and purchase passage to New York. Only Murdoch survives the journey, arriving in New York as a penniless orphan. He is placed in an orphanage until 1853, when the efforts of a kind teacher are rewarded with Murdoch’s appointment as a printer’s apprentice. His love of reading, and his extraordinary photographic memory, lead him to spend his free time at the public library, where he develops a fascination with law books. It is here that Murdoch is discovered by the successful attorney Henry P. Townsend. By 1868, Murdoch is a lawyer working alongside Henry. He still clings to his father’s words of advice: “Do anything you have to do to get land and to keep it.” The opportunity to do just that is close at hand. The narrative is conveyed from several perspectives, beginning with that of James McNeil and then alternating between the points of view of Murdoch and a third-person narrator. (Near the end of the complex and often tragic McNeil family saga, the voice of the Indigenous girl Murdoch adopts as his daughter takes over.) Striegel is a vividly descriptive wordsmith. He viscerally depicts the stench and deprivation experienced by those travelling to America in steerage, the difficulties of city life as suffered by the underprivileged, and the beauty of the New Mexican territory. The novel also offers a detailed historical look at America’s brutal acquisition of the Western land, including decades-long legal battles and the cruel disenfranchisement of Indigenous peoples.
Poignant, disturbing, and engaging, with an emotionally and morally complicated protagonist.Pub Date: May 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780990414162
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Open Instructional Narratives
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
