Elegant and elegiac stories that speak to loss, redemption, and endless sorrow.
A collection of thematically linked tales of Rwandan life in a time of ethnic conflict.
Originally published in French in 2010, these short stories partake of both fiction and memoir. The title story centers on a constant of refugee life, for Igifu is hunger personified, “given to us at birth like a cruel guardian angel.” Igifu is kept at bay only by food, of course, and while the parents of the Tutsi narrator did so with abundant milk, now the cows are dead, and, as in Mukasonga’s real life, “we’d been abandoned on the sterile soil of…Igifu’s kingdom.” Although starving, her mother worries that the neighbors will learn that they’ve been reduced to eating wild radishes, “no food for Tutsis,” though she’s not too proud to turn to those neighbors when the narrator faints from hunger and approaches the gates of death itself. Mukasonga then shifts genders, relating in a man’s voice the cultural realities of a people who measure wealth in cattle (and for whom “cattle stealing was nothing short of a sport”) but are reduced to the shameful condition of raising goats. In that story, which spans decades, a young cowherd grows to manhood in exile while his father finally saves enough to buy a cow‚ a trajectory interrupted by the next spasm of ethnic violence: “The genocide did not spare my father Kalisa, or my mother, or all my family, any more than the other Tutsis of Nyamata. I’ll never know what name he gave his one cow. I don’t want to know if the killers feasted on her.” In another story, a grown-up woman, beautiful, proud, and devoted to fine clothing and makeup, paints herself into an existential corner: The object of a French colonist’s desire until independence, then the mistress of a wealthy, politically powerful entrepreneur in Kigali, she becomes just another refugee, reduced to selling herself in the camps. Reminiscent at times of Iris Origo, Mukasonga writes with world-weary matter-of-factness, her stories understated testimonials to the worst of times.
Elegant and elegiac stories that speak to loss, redemption, and endless sorrow.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-939810-78-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Archipelago
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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
Has much in common with the author’s most beloved novels, but lacks a few degrees of warmth.
A native son returns to his upstate New York hometown, bringing along a peck of trouble.
In Pulitzer Prize–winner Russo’s latest, Nashville icon Tyler Sinclair is returning with his band, Stone Mountain, to his hometown, Stone Mountain, New York, to perform a benefit concert for an old friend, Tim Dockery, known as Doc. When the men were teens, Doc was paralyzed in an accident at the local swimming hole. A few years later, Tyler left town without a word to anyone to pursue what turned out to be a mega-successful music career. But his initial encounter with Doc goes wonky when his old friend suggests that Tyler isn’t universally beloved in his old haunts, and that some may even blame him for what happened at the Falls that day. Then things turn completely south, with the concert interrupted by news of a tragic death, followed by a fatal accident—or maybe it wasn’t an accident. Male friendship, flawed moral character, helpless and enduring romantic love, small-town police, class distinctions between neighboring rural towns—many of the elements of classic Russo are here, but a darker, faster-moving narrative than usual gives the characters less time and space to bloom in our hearts, and there are a number of plot points that don’t bear close scrutiny. In an afterword, the author mentions the novel’s origins as a TV pilot that didn’t survive the writers strike; that might account for both the pacing and the less satisfying character development. Fans would be better served by revisiting the North Bath trilogy or the ever-delightful Straight Man (1997), so full of the trademark Russo humor that’s lacking here.
Has much in common with the author’s most beloved novels, but lacks a few degrees of warmth.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2026
ISBN: 9780593805107
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
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