As the characters blunder about, the narrator is perfectly on his game.
Another chronicle of modern disappointments and their occasional consolations from a master of the modern social novel.
There are four main characters in McCauley's latest: Cecily, an academic embroiled in an investigation at her university; Tom, her gay architect uncle, also facing career trouble; Dorothy, Cecily's ditsy mom; and the town of Woodstock, in which Dorothy is about to open a retreat center with a self-help author, a rather horrible person, natch. McCauley's descriptive gifts shine in his evocations of Woodstock, where "almost every storefront along the main street was decorated with wind chimes, prayer flags, colorful pennants, or loose, billowing clothes for sale" and "in the middle of the tiny town green…was a drum circle and a group of gray-haired people in unstructured cotton pants doing what looked like interpretive dance." His story, in which Cecily and Tom make a pilgrimage to the opening of Dorothy's "more intimate, more affordable Omega Institute” and which revolves, per his usual, around secrets in the characters' lives, gives him plenty of opportunities to do what he does best, which is make pronouncements. "No one can do 'whatever they want to do,' and probably no one should," he plangently informs us. "When someone starts by telling you you can do 'whatever you want,' they end up forcing you to do what they tell you." That seems reasonable, but the author also delights in less defensible assertions. "Academia was the one institution it was always safe to insult, no matter what the political persuasion of the person you were talking to. Like capers, it was universally disliked." The emotional heart of the story is the profound devotion Tom feels for his niece, which at the opening of the book has caused his longtime partner to throw up his hands and move out. Even if we never quite believe this, and even if some other plotlines are also a little hokey, you don't have to care much about plot to enjoy a McCauley novel.
As the characters blunder about, the narrator is perfectly on his game.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250296795
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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