An adept and heart-wrenching rural drama with devastating LGBTQ+ themes.
In this novel, the lives of a mortician, dentist, and retired biology teacher become agonizingly tangled in a small town in Appalachia.
Nathan Ashcraft, Tim Sawyer, and Sarah Lawrence are all outsiders in Wentz Hollow, Kentucky. Nathan, the town’s gay mortician, was born there. But he left not long after Sarah, his well-intentioned high school biology teacher, outed him to his parents, only to return when he is informed his father, Bart, has Alzheimer’s disease. Tim is a dentist from Seattle, a gay man as well, who had all the family support Nathan never did, pursuing rural dentistry to help reduce his student loan debt. The cheerful nature he puts on to hide his discomfort in the Appalachian hollers makes him a friend of Bart’s, despite his dementia, though he finds himself more attracted to Nathan’s boorish brother, Johnny, than the funeral director. Sarah is retired but still lives in Wentz Hollow. Her days as a self-proclaimed “fiercely liberal biology teacher, a free-thinker, an activist” who mixed abortifacients for girls in need are long over. Now, she lives with regrets over how she exposed Nathan and fantasizes that he will somehow find happiness with Steve Malone, his still closeted, now married high school love. Yet when Steve’s stillborn child is brought to the mortuary, Tim’s and Sarah’s secrets will force Nathan to reexamine the past. Eads nails the interconnectivity of small-town dramas like a neighborhood handyman who deftly wields a hammer. The pacing is excellent, doling out the story’s big reveals naturally and often turning moments that initially seem inconsequential, like a stop for coffee or a request for a cheap, ceramic urn, into impactful or heartbreaking scenes. The tale is told nonlinearly from the points of view of all three protagonists, though Sarah’s is in the form of a memoir-turned-letter to Nathan, a clever device that not only fits the character, but also keeps the narration from being complacent or repetitive. There is so much tragedy in the novel—involving family, love, identity, idealism, and more—along with just enough hope, that few readers will be able to keep their tears off the page.
An adept and heart-wrenching rural drama with devastating LGBTQ+ themes.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 9781736596494
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hex Publishers
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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