Grim, violent Midwestern gothic—hard to watch, hard to turn away from.
The latest from Jacobs offers a terrifying glimpse into teen anomie and rootlessness and the ways violence can take root there.
Yes, it's Midwestern teen gothic, and narrated in a sinister, watchful first-person plural, but Jacobs' novel bears less resemblance to The Virgin Suicides (1993) than to dystopian works like Lord of the Flies (1954) or even A Clockwork Orange (1962). The story is told by malign forces seeking ways to create chaos and bloodshed by finding the chinks in teen psyches and "jumping" into them, and the aimless, battered teens of Adena, Ohio, offer vulnerabilities and footholds aplenty. Parents are almost invisible here; the (mostly well-to-do) kids have been left to their own, well, devices, left to stew in their angst and solitude and the hyperviolent culture that besieges them from every side. Greg is grappling with mental illness but trying a little, it seems, to reengage with the world; meanwhile, his younger sister, Beth, terrorized by her brother, is receding. David gives himself over to grim corners of the web featuring right-wing conspiracy and porn, and he’s so oblivious that throughout the three weeks the book spans, he's hosting a squatter who has colonized his basement and swiped his online identity. Claire is an irritable, mercurial young woman trying on a succession of masks, none of which quite fit. Graham is the scarred survivor of a school shooting. Sarah means well, approximately...but she's so ingenuous and so malleable and so un-self-aware that others find it easy to project themselves onto her, to use her empathy for their own ends. The book is daring and stylish, occasionally even having flashes of black humor; Jacobs is a talented writer. But the darkness is so relentless and remorseless that the reader can feel pursued by it, punished.
Grim, violent Midwestern gothic—hard to watch, hard to turn away from.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-3746-0385-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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