A taut, blisteringly smart novel, both measured and rageful.
A woman recalls her girlhood and adolescence through the lenses of family dysfunction and sexual assault.
The first novel by acclaimed poet and critic Manguso is a bracing coming-of-age story and master class in controlled style. The narrator, Ruthie, recalls growing up in Massachusetts on poverty’s edge. Her father is snappish and distant; her mother’s quick to judge and deeply narcissistic. (“The doctor said, Oh, she’s beautiful, when he pulled me out, and my mother had thought he was talking about her.”) As the story moves into Ruthie’s teen years, the damage to her self-esteem begins to show: She’s anxious around anybody she sees as her betters (which is almost everyone) and sees bullying and ostracism as her due. The plainspokenness of her voice—recalling early Ann Beattie and the dirty realists—at once underplays the tension and suggests just how tightly coiled she is. By the time she enters high school, she’s exposed to a new ecosystem of sexualized mistreatment, from inappropriate touches to rape. Police officers, gym teachers, and family members all seem to be wired for exploitation. So her self-harm intensifies (she pulls out her eyelashes) alongside her awareness not just of sexual abuse, but of how common it is among those around her, which leads to the novel’s powerful conclusive revelations. Manguso is a lovely writer about unlovely things—her previous books were built around lyric essays on suicide and autoimmune disease, and here she depicts her protagonist’s quiet agony with a poet’s eye. (“My shame fell from the ceiling like snow.”) But the elegance doesn’t diminish the emotional impact of her story and the journey of becoming mature enough to understand transgression, be horrified by it, and search for a means to escape it.
A taut, blisteringly smart novel, both measured and rageful.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-24122-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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