Small in size but epic in scope: a delightful, profoundly meaningful adventure.
Palestinian author Nimr spins an elegant fable of literacy, romance, and derring-do.
The Village, as locals call it, “was so isolated that no one knew of its existence, except for a few of the merchants who traded with the villagers.” It is also a place where books are forbidden to girls for fear that reading will turn their heads from the truth, and adult women who dare express independence are sent to the “House of Shamed Wives.” Young Saeed will have none of it, and after he escapes to the city, becoming a bookseller and falling in love with the beautiful Jawaher, he returns to help lift a curse and liberate the Village, though at terrible cost. Shams and Qamar, Saeed and Jawaher's daughters, take separate paths when they are orphaned: Shams lives quietly while Qamar, armed with a book Saeed had treasured—one that gives Nimr’s tale its title—embarks upon truly wondrous journeys indeed, most involving love and loss. In the first, Qamar leaves Gaza for Egypt in a caravan in which, night after night, she takes the role of a Scheherazade-like storyteller: “I told them a story I’d read in a book,” she recounts, “about a sailor lost in the Sea of Darkness, who remained there for many years, fighting the waves, horrors, and monsters of the sea, until finally he triumphed and returned to his family.” Brigands beset the caravan, and though they edit her heavily to be sure that the bad guys in any given story win the day, her talents win her an elevated place in a palace—and then, in turn, aboard a pirate ship and in royal households from Morocco to India. Nimr’s story is both fabulous and utterly matter-of-fact, and, notably, at every turn women are the leaders and the shapers of their worlds. The writing is lovely, too, as when Qamar tells us, “On the watery surface, I could see my life clearly written, each stroke of the oars another page of my life.”
Small in size but epic in scope: a delightful, profoundly meaningful adventure.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62371-866-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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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