Rash's 20th book is among his best.
Set in Rash's beloved midcentury Appalachia, a nimbly plotted, suspenseful romance with a twist—its titular hero is the third wheel.
Blackburn Gant is by habit, inclination, and necessity a loner. Disfigured (as he sees it) by polio and abandoned by his family members, who've moved to Florida, Blackburn has taken work, permanently it seems, as live-in caretaker of a mountain cemetery near Blowing Rock, North Carolina. When his closest friend, Jacob Hampton, gets drafted into the Korean War, Gant assumes responsibility, too, for protecting and tending to Jacob's pregnant wife. Naomi Clarke, only 16, is an outlander from distant Tennessee who came east to work as a hotel maid; she's ill-educated (but working diligently on that so that she can write better letters), without means, friends, or support. When she and Jacob—scion of the town's most prominent family, shopkeepers revered for their generosity with credit during the Depression—met and fell in love, Jacob's family disowned him, and now they refuse to have anything to do with Naomi. After a scary confrontation with Jacob's father early in her third trimester, when Naomi and Blackburn venture out to the movies, Blackburn helps Naomi move back home, seven hours west, to await the baby and her husband's return. But when—as recounted in the novel's bravura opening, a hand-to-hand combat scene that evokes James Dickey's To the White Sea—Jacob is grievously wounded, his parents see the prospect of his long convalescence as a chance to put things right—or to put them horribly wrong—and they seize that chance. Rash writes with finesse and affection, as usual, of western North Carolina and its people. But the mood isn't mere nostalgia—there's a flint and an unflinching realism underneath, especially in his portrayal of the stalwart, utterly solid Blackburn Gant, that elevates the novel.
Rash's 20th book is among his best.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780385544276
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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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