A bighearted triumph.
A hapless woman reconnects with her family in this debut novel.
Aubrey Lamb is having a hard time. Aside from the fact that she’s something of a bad-decision machine, the 32-year-old Washington, D.C., woman has been dogged by a string of bad luck: On the very day she thought her longtime boyfriend was going to propose, she first lost her wallet, cutting off access to her meager funds, and then said boyfriend dumped her. Then her luck changes: When she gets to one of her three jobs, she finds an email from a relative she’s never heard of telling her there’s an offer to buy the Tennessee farm that was part of her inheritance from her father—Aubrey owns a share of the land along with three cousins, which she vaguely knew about but hadn’t given any thought to since her father’s recent death. Considering that she’s in desperate financial straits, she agrees to travel down to Tennessee to discuss the offer. Watching over all of this is the narrator, unnamed until late in the book, a late relative who lives in the titular land, an afterlife populated by Lamb family members who were in line to inherit the property but died before they could: “Without even trying, we see what happens here, overhear all sorts of conversations, from banal to explosive. Better than the best reality TV.” The narrator intersperses Aubrey’s story with the history of the farm and the Lamb family, a long line of Black Tennesseans who endured racism over the course of the 20th century. Sanders plots the story so intricately and powerfully that it’s hard to believe this is a first novel, following the 2023 story collection Company; it has a sprawling cast of characters, and the author has obviously put real care into crafting each one. She imbues the book with imagination and wit, and the narrator’s voice, cheeky and charming, is perfectly rendered. This is a truly magnificent novel from a uniquely powerful voice.
A bighearted triumph.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781250421678
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 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
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
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