A haunting tale that is both despairing and inspiriting.
A medical student is assigned to a life-altering clerkship in pediatric oncology in Del Toro’s novel.
In 1995, Rudy Dell, a fourth-year medical student at the top of his class, is looking forward to a cushy clerkship at an outpatient dermatology clinic. He’s suddenly reassigned to a pediatric oncology department, however, likely because he’s paired with his best friend, Mike Davenport, the son of a billionaire in the medical insurance business roundly hated by doctors everywhere. Rudy is quickly thrust into an emotionally charged environment—all about him are children struggling to survive, flanked by their agonized parents. He befriends Maria, a 9-year-old girl in the final throes of leukemia who has no family and is a ward of the state; sadly, she seems destined to die alone. Rudy has always been a competitive student, one who routinely sees his professional commitments in careerist terms, but now he’s profoundly confronted by the obligations of his chosen vocation. “Up to this moment, everything had been a challenge. He had learned to see patients as tests of his abilities. Rudy saw them not as people, but as problems to be solved, unconsciously rationalizing away the human factor, the empathy.” The author sensitively depicts Rudy’s gathering misgivings about his choice to become a doctor and his first confrontation with genuine self-doubt. The most memorable aspect of this poignant novel, though, is the characterization of children like Maria, facing death with almost preternatural courage, often more worried about their parents than their own fate. This presentation of childhood—“innocent to the world and in the presence of magic”—is as insightful as it is heartbreaking. Occasionally, Del Toro’s writing approaches sentimental clumsiness, but he always pulls back with an admirable authorial restraint. This is a sad but hopeful book, one that impressively captures the complexity of children’s lives.
A haunting tale that is both despairing and inspiriting.Pub Date: March 20, 2020
ISBN: 9781733781930
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Del Toro Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2024
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
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