A promising but padded work that’s hampered by its slow pace.
A visit from Benito Mussolini upends the lives of an anti-Fascist family in el Moncef’s novella set in 1930s Libya.
There’s nothing more important to the Khaldoon family than loyalty. Indeed, the Italian occupation of their native Benghazi means that loyalty is more important than ever, but it’s frequently put to the test. According to their mother’s wishes, 9-year-old Mariam Khaldoon and her sister, Zaynab, attend a so-called “Mussolini school” to further their secular education. Their merchant father, a committed anti-Fascist, regards their attendance at the school as a capitulation to the occupiers. After accidentally splitting her lip on a washboard, Mariam returns from the infirmary and encounters Markunda, a Tuareg woman who insists on reading her fortune: “The reading did not last more than ten or fifteen minutes,” Mariam recalls years later, “and yet Markunda was able to put her finger on some of the most crucial things my inner world revolved around: the inexplicable sensitivities; the middle-of-the-night onslaughts of unruly ideas and unrelenting mental energy.” Markunda predicts that Mariam will do marvelous things in the future, but the youngster has no idea just what they will entail. The answer arrives a few years later when Mussolini himself visits Benghazi. Mariam and Zaynab are chosen among all the girls to welcome Il Duce to their school—a move that their father interprets as a deliberate effort to shame him for his work to fund the resistance against Fascist rule. Will Mariam betray her loyalty to her father, her family, and her country by doing what the teachers at her school tell her to do?
El Moncef’s prose is elegant and evocative; he captures not only the street life of Benghazi, but the imaginative mind of his narrator Mariam: “I caught myself playing a game: narrowing my eyes and tilting my head slightly, visualizing the wide neoclassical building at the end of the long, slate-cobbled alley as one of the messy watercolors I would paint with Mother’s awkward help.” The novella (which, at fewer than 70 pages, feels very much like a short story) seems overpacked; in addition to a list of characters and unnecessary maps of Benghazi and the Khaldoon household, there’s a 15-page introductory note by Mari Ruti, a professor of critical theory and gender and sexuality studies at the University of Toronto. Additionally, the plot’s main action is nested within two separate frame narratives. All of these layers have the unintentional effect of drawing the reader’s attention to how slight and uneventful the narrative ultimately is. A great deal of text is expended on the incident of Mariam injuring her lip, for example, even though it reveals very little regarding the central conflicts of the story. However, the setting is compelling and well rendered, and the relationship between Mariam and her father is worthy of exploration. Readers will likely wish that they didn’t have to wade through all of the additional, unneeded material to get to it.
A promising but padded work that’s hampered by its slow pace.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2022
ISBN: 9782954996530
Page Count: 106
Publisher: Penelope Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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