Smart, snappy, compelling tales.
This debut collection of flash fiction explores a broad range of themes, from love to criminality.
Inspired by a literary competition in a local newspaper, Cornfield began writing stories of 101 words in length. He started producing a tale a day and soon accumulated over 400 pieces. This captivating series opener includes 101 of those stories, each inspired by a specific prompt. The opening tale, “A Most Unexpected Gift,” is shaped by a prompt that simply reads “Found Property.” It introduces a character called Shakes, a destitute scavenger who finds keys to a Mercedes on the street. He drives off happily in the car, unaware of what is lying in the trunk. In “Lessons From a Grim Reaper,” a member of the hordes of reapers sets about “rebranding death” for the social media age, calling himself the “Grin Greeter.” Meanwhile, in “Unfortunately, not Everybody’s a Baseball Fan,” responding to the prompt “execution of an innocent person,” an assassin’s lack of sports knowledge leads her to take out the wrong target. Other tales introduce squabbling lovers, hoodlums getting their stories straight, and fated fraternity brothers enjoying a vacation in Tahiti. Flash fiction places significant pressure on a writer to communicate entertaining plotlines using very few words. Cornfield rises admirably to this challenge. The author holds the power to write tantalizing sentences that quickly and effortlessly draw readers in: “Jessica playfully kissed his ear as she removed the .22 revolver from her purse.” The brevity of such statements compels readers to speculate beyond the confines of the narrative itself. This speculation is all part of the fun. Many of the stories in the collection are driven by the delightful crackle of dryly humorous dialogue: “ ‘That was quite a meal, Lace,’ Glen smiled. ‘They said the recipe was “foolproof” but you showed them.’ ‘Thanks, hon. Imagine how good it might’ve been if I’d cared.’ ” There are rare occasions when Cornfield’s plots struggle to entertain. For instance, “Neither Safe nor Sane,” about waging revenge on “raging pyro” neighbors, has an uncharacteristically matter-of-fact denouement. But the author rarely misses the mark, and the bite-size stories found here will prove sufficiently addictive to cause readers to devour them one after another.
Smart, snappy, compelling tales.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2022
ISBN: 9781667866321
Page Count: 224
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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