A pensive, raw look at aging and time’s passing.
A woman in her 50s looks back on her own and her family’s history in this collection of short stories and poems.
Most of Bourne’s brief stories and musings, set across the United States, unfold chronologically and star Sophia (an autobiographical stand-in for the author), a woman who, over the course of the book, goes from adventurous youth to middle-aged writer reflecting on her life. In the opening story, “1974 The River,” the narrator writes how lucky she is to have swum in the same turbid waters that her family has waded in for generations. The dirt, she believes, makes her stronger, more resilient. This tale sets the tone for a book that often considers time and its effects. Sophia’s own exploits aren’t particularly remarkable. She works in food service, she holds some office jobs, and she has lovers, some unfaithful. As she gets closer to middle age, she ponders the deaths of her loved ones and her increasing financial insecurity (“My modest savings quickly become worthless with the inflation that has hit”). What’s interesting about these anecdotes isn’t so much the outcomes of Sophia’s adventures but the immediacy and candidness of the prose: “I held my own, though. I worked hard,” she writes, detailing her time working at a sleazy restaurant. Short sentences like these highlight her resilience, and by the end of the book, in entries like “2017 A Year of Weeping,” “2022 Lua Rosa,” and “2022 Peasant Strength,” she uses poetry as a way to more concisely express her emotional turmoil and resolve. She notes how she needs “to heal / from this, that, or the other chaos,” but in writing the poem, she finds the strength to do so. Though some readers may be put off by the sudden shift in style, the poetry offers new ways to consider the themes of wisdom, grief, and tenacity.
A pensive, raw look at aging and time’s passing.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 203
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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