Propelled by Mackintosh's singular lyricism, this strange, unsettling novel—enigmatic to the last—never quite coheres.
A baker's widow processes grief, obsession, and desire for the enigmatic couple who may have caused a townwide poisoning.
Elodie spends her days kneading loaves, selling bread to the members of her insular French village, and washing clothes in the communal lavoir. Her husband is obsessed with creating the perfect loaf of bread, and she tries unsuccessfully to rekindle their old spark. “I can admit that in those days I was sometimes jealous of the dough my husband put his hands into, worked so tenderly and tirelessly with, up to the elbows,” Elodie recalls. The baker and his wife may always have fresh food at hand, but Elodie is starved for affection. When an American ambassador and his glamorous wife, Violet, arrive to great fanfare, Elodie is unexpectedly enraptured by them both. At the couple's housewarming party, Elodie overhears the ambassador warn Violet away from the food. “If you eat the bread, you’ll die, he said, and it sounded more like a caress than a threat.” So begins a hallucinogenic fairy tale, based on a real-life mass poisoning, in which the lines between Elodie's desire for Violet and her desire for Violet’s life warp and blur. Mackintosh alternates between Elodie's memories of Violet's arrival and her letters to Violet, which reveal the darkness, longing, and abjection that have consumed Elodie in the year after the tragedy. The effect is jittery and destabilizing, heightening the horrors of mass death—and intimate cruelty—when they finally arrive. “I have been the most myself in these moments of shame, drawn inexorably down into myself, everything in my body in alignment,” Elodie writes to Violet. “What I am trying to tell you is that when you finally get your face into the dirt, it can feel like a relief.”
Propelled by Mackintosh's singular lyricism, this strange, unsettling novel—enigmatic to the last—never quite coheres.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9780385548304
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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