Dizzyingly complex and dazzlingly written, full of rewards and arch humor for the patient reader.
A sprawling, sinuous novel of life and ideas in a funhouse-mirror South Asia.
Darkmotherland is a Himalayan nation torn by class, age, religion, and politics. At the beginning of Upadhyay’s story, a horrific earthquake has destroyed much of the country. The Big Two, as it’s called, “made people go insane,” he writes. “A well-respected spice merchant was seen around town drumming dhintang, dhintang, dhintang on his madal all day long, making everyone wish he’d died.” Fortunately, in one of the winding storylines of the book, PM Papa, the autocratic ruler, is there to save the day—or so one political faction insists, even as during the newly declared state of emergency, “all political activities were immediately banned.” In a palatial home called the Asylum—not for refugees, but for rich people’s money—a second storyline emerges, with tenuous interactions between a monied young man and a family with a gently intellectual father and a mother so left-leaning that she’s known as Madam Mao. Kranti, their daughter, marries into the Asylum, there to be bound up in intrigue. Meanwhile, while the street is abuzz with talk of a follow-up earthquake that “would decimate humanity as we know it,” a concubine whose gender evolves with each passing day, to the horror of the nation’s increasingly intransigent fundamentalists, gains ever greater political influence. In a novel that might be likened to Pynchon by way of Rushdie, demanding the reader’s close attention, Upadhyay is clearly having a blast playing with names and cultural constructs: One of his players is named General Tso, two disaffected servants are called Cheech and Chong, Allen Ginsberg (“a famous Amrikan homo”) and the Beatles make cameo appearances, and a Grateful Dead leather jacket becomes an object of memory and contemplation.
Dizzyingly complex and dazzlingly written, full of rewards and arch humor for the patient reader.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781641294720
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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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