Brilliant, unsparing examinations of the human condition in all its variety.
Short fiction by the writer best known for her Merchant Ivory screenplays and the Booker Prize–winning novel Heat and Dust.
Born in Germany in 1927, Jhabvala fled with her parents to England in 1939; she married and moved to India at 24, then relocated to New York 24 years later. Explaining the title of this collection in an introduction, she describes herself as “a writer without any ground of being out of which to write…a cuckoo forever insinuating myself into other’s nests.” This gift is evident in 17 stories distinguished by a sharp eye for character and revealing details. The chronological organization (1957 to 2011) spotlights shifting subject matter that reflects Jhabvala’s transnational odyssey. The first six are immersed in Indian culture with authority and sensitivity; “Lekha,” “Better Than Dead,” and “The Elected” are notable for the implicit social criticism in their portraits of unhappy wives. “A Birthday in London” and “Wedding Preparations” shift the scene to Britain while evincing the same gimlet eye and brilliant ear for speech patterns. These pieces set the stage for the remarkable ones that follow. Some examine the complex interactions between expatriate Europeans and Indians (“In Love With a Beautiful Girl,” “An Indian Citizen,” “Foreign Wives,” “A Very Special Fate”). Others delineate New York lives: The love affair of “An Intellectual Girl and an Eminent Artiste” depicts a cultural chasm that sex does little to close; “Commensurate Happiness” and “Grandmother” feature stinging portraits of breathtakingly selfish people preying on the kinder-hearted. The chilling final story, “Aphrodisiac,” takes selfishness to a whole new level in its tale of a naïve Cambridge graduate and aspiring novelist who returns to New Delhi and becomes enmeshed in the shameless manipulations of his brother’s wife. Despite all the bad behavior on display, the acuity of Jhabvala’s observations and the clarity of her prose make this collection exhilarating rather than depressing.
Brilliant, unsparing examinations of the human condition in all its variety.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781640097360
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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
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