A richly embroidered story of early-20th-century rural life in South Carolina.
A young girl struggles in her relationship with her overbearing stepmother in Alexander’s second historical novel in a series.
In Greeleyville, South Carolina, in 1918, 12-year-old Gaynelle Bell lives a difficult life on her family’s farm. Her stepmom, Jessie, seems bent on making everyone’s days joyless, and her 16-year-old sister, Vivian, hasn’t been herself lately. Gaynelle finds escape in the stables, where she reads books that her father, Clayton, secretly gives to her. Nearly a year ago, the town doctor, Stephen Connor—who may be Vivian’s biological father—offered to pay for the older girl to attend boarding school in Charleston. However, Jessie has been secretly slipping poison into Vivian’s tea to keep her at home. Clayton takes Gaynelle on visits to Aunt Anna, the widowed best friend of the sisters’ late mother. Gaynelle is fascinated by a tapestry in Anna’s house: “It depicted a young woman in a high tower. Impossibly-long, honey-colored hair flowed out the tower window to the ground, where a raven-haired young man in royal garb stood.” When the poisoning—but not the culprit—is discovered and Vivian is sent away to school, Gaynelle is left to fend for herself against her stepmother’s cruelties. She thinks her handsome prince may have arrived in the form of new farmhand Tommy Salters, but Jessie proves a daunting guardian. Alexander’s prose ably replicates the rhythms of speech—and life—in the 1920s South, as when Tommy bids Gaynelle farewell at the end of the harvest: “ ‘Your Pa just don’t need me right now. Leastways, not for a couple o’ months. But he will in the spring. We’ll figure it out.’….Winter had arrived, and they were making their final goodbyes.” The novel does take a while to get going, but once it does, readers will find themselves hooked by the more dramatic elements of this coming-of-age tale. Fans of the previous volume, Silk (2021), about Gaynelle and Vivian’s mother, will likely get more from this sequel than newcomers will, but all are likely to find much to enjoy here.
A richly embroidered story of early-20th-century rural life in South Carolina.Pub Date: April 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-955444-26-2
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Onalex Books
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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
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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