An involving identity puzzle with memorable characters and a vivid setting.
In this novel, a woman who has lost her memory becomes involved in a Massachusetts island’s people and history.
Coming to awareness while sitting on a wharfside bench on Nantucket, a woman realizes she doesn’t know where or who she is, not even her own name. Seeing a boat called Veronaand a Smith Siding and Shingling truck, she claims the name Verona Smith. She soon finds a house-cleaning job, drifting pleasantly enough through her days, especially after realizing she doesn’t want to know about her past. She gets a room with Sandy Bronson, 60, who drives a tour bus for summer visitors. Another driver is Addie McDaniel; he came to the island some 20 years ago for a temporary job and never left. An influx of the superwealthy is making cheap housing hard to find, so Addie considers leaving but is also magnetically attracted to Verona. Though wary, she accepts his company; meanwhile, she’s strangely drawn to a lighthouse and an older woman she meets there. Documents turn up in Sandy’s home relating to this woman and her long-ago tragedy, items Verona also stumbles across. As a hurricane brings wreckage to Nantucket, many secrets become unfurled and lives change. In his novel, Sheppard displays his affection for and knowledge of Nantucket, making the island a potent metaphor: Its tourist trappings, quirky quaintness, and rising gentrification contrast with the power, mystery, and destructive potential of the surrounding sea. But the island, too, holds mysteries, often signaled by a Carrollian rabbit or two and personified by Verona’s amnesia. The varied characters, described with deft three-dimensionality, have generally washed up on the island in their own way, helping Verona to blend in with the other flotsam. Her returning memory draws all the threads together in a satisfying conclusion.
An involving identity puzzle with memorable characters and a vivid setting.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-51266-1
Page Count: 362
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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