Graceful stories by a writer with enormous empathy for even the most flawed and forlorn among us.
Eight stories of dislocation—cultural and geographic, familial and romantic.
An elderly woman parked in a “retirement-community-cum-old-age-home” in Coimbatore, India, by her well-meaning daughter, who lives in the United States, tells a lie that restores a little of her agency but also underscores how empty her life has become. A mother realizes that she has not been invited on her daughter’s buddymoon, a recent fad of newly wedded couples heading off on honeymoons with friends and family, but her ex-husband’s girlfriend has. A professor is accused of taking advantage of his graduate students, all Indian immigrants like him, by asking them to do chores around his house. Bhanoo, a longtime newspaper reporter, homes in on devastating moments of loss—the results of aging, cultural misunderstanding, so-called progress, fickle hearts, and even tragedy—throughout this stunning debut collection of stories. The professor, who sees himself in his graduate students, thousands of miles from India, completing their studies in small college towns like Bozeman, Montana, can’t reconcile his sense of himself as treating them “like family, because their own families were so far away” with the charge that he took advantage of them. In “Nature Exchange,” a wrenching story about a woman whose son was killed in a school shooting, Veena returns obsessively to the nature center where children can trade found objects like sand dollars and dead insects for points to be redeemed for prizes. Before his death, her little boy was saving up for a pair of antlers. Now, as she struggles to move on with her life, Veena fixates on the antlers as though they might free her from her grief. These are psychologically astute stories—and also riveting. By carefully withholding key details, Bhanoo transforms human drama into mystery.
Graceful stories by a writer with enormous empathy for even the most flawed and forlorn among us.Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64622-087-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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