A stunning collection of short fiction set in the American Southwest.
Compelling stories explore hard lives and hope in a landscape as dangerous as it is enchanting.
Most of the pieces in Hicks’ debut collection are told from the points of view of girls or young women; all share a Southwestern setting and convey the authenticity of felt experience. Grief and loss are recurring themes (“Carriage” details the loss of a pregnancy); transformation is another (in “Rock Collection,” tokens of memory become a protective fortress). A few stories hint at the supernatural (the imagined wolf in “If Only I Could Tell You”), while others, like “My Drugstore Queen” and “Farrago,” highlight fleeting moments of daily life. “Drill,” which is about a school lockdown, and “Extraterrestre,” in which a young girl secretly aids a fugitive immigrant, address up-to-the-minute social issues, and women stand up to violent men in “Cowboy Titanium,” “Little Lady,” and “Pick-Me-Girl.” Flash fiction pieces less than two pages long pack a powerful emotional punch and make up more than half of the collection. Hicks’ writing is as spare and stripped to the essentials as the desert her stories inhabit. One brief piece, “There Is No Advice I’d Give My 16-Year-Old Self,” is almost a prose poem. In the title entry, a mother tells her daughter, “We should howl and get lost and find ourselves again and again.” Despite their brevity, the stories are packed with biting social commentary (in one of the longer stories, rivalry between a pair of fake cowboys in a “Wild West” theme park leads to tragedy), distinctive characters (tough-talking Clementine and sweet Dally take a Thelma and Louise–style joyride to the Grand Canyon in “Rattlesnakes”), and vivid imagery: In “Blink,” a school bus driver “would pick us up and drop us off like he was in the sanitation business”; a girl engaged in a staring contest sees “the pasture, the cows, the rolling hills beyond, and all the blue above” reflected in her opponent’s dark eyes.
A stunning collection of short fiction set in the American Southwest.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798902431763
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Cowboy Jamboree Press
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2026
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© 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.
