A sui generis but wearying examination of grief.
An autofiction elegy for both a former lover and the AIDS era.
The Ed of the title is Ed Aulerich-Sugai, an acclaimed painter who died of AIDS in 1994. He and artist-essayist-poet Glück were lovers in the early '70s, though this book doesn’t strictly chronicle their relationship, breakup, and friendship. Instead, Glück delivers lyric-essay chapters on his San Francisco neighbors as well as friends lost to AIDS through the '80s, bouncing between erotic remembrances of hookups to more mournful thoughts about Ed’s death. Glück’s tone can be wryly comic in remembering this era: “There were not enough orgasms in the universe to cut through the knot of tension that was Ed.” Or it can be gently lyrical: “Burning isolation. From each red window Ed’s outstreached arms. I’m safe in heaven, somehow.” And there’s a genuine tenderness in some moments, as when he recalls washing Ed’s body with another lover after his death. But there’s no prevailing order to this jumble of remembrances, which makes it hard to find a throughline in either Ed’s personality or his relationship with Robert—and makes a scene of coprophilia even more blindsiding than it’d usually be. Much of the closing sections are dedicated to Ed’s dream journals, which deploy a variety of metaphors around sex and illness, including shape-shifting, war, and Dennis Cooper-ish visions of incest and pedophilia. Glück’s delivery here is abstract (“We run for our lives, dodging sunbeams filtered through a mesh of arching roses”), and anybody troubled by transgression is shopping in the wrong aisle. But it’s as tedious to experience Ed’s dreams at length as anybody’s, and though Glück plainly strives to be affirming and loving, the prose is more often exhausting.
A sui generis but wearying examination of grief.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781681377766
Page Count: 280
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
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