A bold but confounding collection of short humor pieces.
A volume of flash fiction skewers celebrities, politicians, and pop-culture figures of yesteryear.
McGrouchpants does not hold back in these short works, which include a mix of comic pieces, prose poems, and microstories. There are confessional celebrity monologues, fake advice columns, satirical case histories, Hardy Boys parodies, and a slew of other forms, all of which the author uses to shock and surprise readers into laughter (or some other reaction). Most are no longer than a page, and several are actually shorter than their own titles. A fair number of the pieces revolve around former Vice President Dick Cheney: Cheney claiming to have introduced Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson; Cheney volunteering to serve as a “human latrine” for troops in Iraq; Cheney recounting the time he ate a bag of goat penises on his front porch with Wilford Brimley. The longest story by far is the 28-page “A Bite-Sized Piece,” which alternates between a woman’s account of dating an erratic man known as the Argyle Scot and instructions for how to remove a leech from one’s body. A pen name like McGrouchpants is likely to insulate the author from accusations of misanthropy, but even so, the tales aren’t often funny as much as they are petulant or mocking. There’s a palpable animosity directed toward academics, sex workers, and columnist Dan Savage, among others. Every page is a surprise, and there is a certain delight in that. But there is little enjoyment to be had from the stories themselves. The jokes are extremely scatological. Many make sense only on the level of Dada or absurdism. The piece “ ‘Why Christopher Hitchens Doesn’t Matter,’ by George Orwell’s Reincarnation, Now a Six-Year-Old Living Outside Leeds,” for example, reads in its entirety: “ ‘Oh, blimey, guv’nor, he got it all wrong!’ ‘What are you studying in school?’ ‘Geography! It's my favorite subject!’ ‘What do you like to do for fun?’ ‘Football! Me and me mates like to toss it around!’ ‘Really?’ ‘Naw! We hit the pipe!’ The End.” Is that a commentary on Hitchens or Orwell? Or Britain? Or elementary school curriculums? As with most of the pieces, many readers will be left befuddled and slightly annoyed.
A bold but confounding collection of short humor pieces.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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