Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.
Losing Mom: heartfelt autofiction from a man who just may be Bob Dylan’s son.
“‘Uncanny, the way you look like him. Bob Dylan. You know his music?’” As soon as you encounter the premise of Sussman’s debut novel, you will surely Google him, and see that his resemblance to the man who wrote “Girl From the North Country” is somewhere beyond uncanny. Sussman has also published an article in Harper’s Magazine that explains the real-life basis of the novel—his mother’s year-long relationship with Dylan and a later meeting nine months before he was born. He magicks this material into a gorgeous, emotionally thrilling first-person novel chronicling the death of the narrator Evan’s mother from cancer, a period during which she finally shares more of the truth about her connection with Dylan, as well as other stories of her life, some terrible and some amazing. All of this has been completely hidden from Evan till now, despite the fact that he and June were very close in his childhood. Their emotional intimacy was built on play-acting and storytelling, on King Arthur and Harry Potter (the Potter saga is a surprising and important touchstone throughout), and also fraught due to her stormy relationships with his stepfather and other men. Despite these romantic disappointments, and things far worse than disappointment, June persists in believing, and wanting her son to believe, that there is nothing holier than love. As the novel opens, she has called him in London—Evan has lived abroad since college—to tell him she has cancer, though she withholds the seriousness of her condition for most of the book, continuing to pursue both holistic and Western treatment. The night he arrives, she serves him an alfresco dinner of homegrown vegetables: “The eggplant lay gleaming on its browned back. Beets glowed blood red. Crisped collard and kale lay entangled in the baking tray. In the pan the bloomed popcorn was spiced and golden.” They recite poetry to each other to bless the meal. The love that swells beneath this scene, and every scene, will just about knock you over.
Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780593835050
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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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