A distressing and compelling tale that carries an implicit warning about contemporary events.
A Jewish mother and her young daughter escape from the pogroms in Ukraine in Ostroff’s historical novel.
It is August 1919, in the Ukrainian town of Pogrebische. Bullets are flying through the window of the home of Shaindel and Avrum Pogrebiske; World War I has ended, but the Russian Civil War is in full swing. The Bolsheviks are fighting the White Army (made up of peasants and royalists), and both are fighting the Ukrainian separatists. One thing they have in common is their mutual hatred of Jews. Avrum, a member of the Jewish defense unit, is away at a meeting being held at the wall of the sugar factory with a commander of the Ukrainian National Army. His and Shaindel’s 3-year-old daughter, Elta, is hiding in her bedroom. It is the beginning of a murderous night of bloody pillaging by the peasant army (“Maria screamed several times until her voice was lost amidst the smashing of dishes. Furniture toppled. A door slammed. Horses’ hooves pounded above our heads”). Shaindel crawls to Elta’s bedroom during a pause in the ransacking of her home and escapes with her daughter through the back door, finding refuge with Avrum’s sister, Bluma Loeb, where she learns of the slaughter that took place at the factory wall. Shaindel’s sister, Chava Robbins, is living in New York’s Lower East Side, and Shaindel realizes that now she and Elta must join Chava in America. From the novel’s riveting opening chapters through Shaindel’s multiyear struggle to reach America, Ostroff captures the texture of Eastern European Jewish life. Tension is palpable throughout the narrative, and the tale, based upon Ostroff’s family saga, is packed with historical information, highlighting the rampant antisemitic violence and the intricacies of navigating America’s increasingly restrictive immigration requirements. Beneath the ever present fear and despair is a story of courage, determination, and intense family devotion.
A distressing and compelling tale that carries an implicit warning about contemporary events.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9798862381344
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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