A richly atmospheric debut that confronts how art, memory, and silence shape families in the long shadow of the Holocaust.
Knecht braids Holocaust survival, art-world skullduggery, and the perils of youthful defiance into a sprawling multigenerational family saga and debut novel.
Knecht’s novel begins in 1945, and the setting is Poland’s infamous Auschwitz extermination camp, where prisoner Lila Lesser miraculously carries her son Leo out alive (who is later tragically shot and killed) after the Allies liberate the camp. By the 1960s, Lila is raising her granddaughter Isabel in Venice, keeping close ties to her lifelong friend Miriam. Haunted by her husband Albert’s betrayals and his celebrated art collection (along with its murky legacy), Lila remains stubbornly silent about the past. Isabel, restless and daring, grows determined to uncover her family’s secrets—and finds herself entangled with Niccolo, the son of a brutish upholsterer with criminal ties. Their relationship leads her into the dangerous orbit of Signor Gritti and the mysterious “Corbeau,” men whose designs on the Lesser Collection threaten both Isabel and her inheritance. Knecht situates Isabel’s adolescent rebellion against the backdrop of stolen masterpieces, forbidden romances, and Venice’s fading grandeur. The novel adroitly explores, among other themes, how memory and trauma shape survival. Lila reflects on the legacy of the art collection Albert once guarded: “‘You must show them but never sell them,’ Albert said long before the SS discovered her….And Lila hasn’t sold the art, not ever, not even to repay her business debts.” The collection becomes both burden and salvation, a symbol of promises broken and loyalties tested. Knecht excels at evoking atmosphere: At one point, Isabel imagines “willing herself and the woman and the three little dogs to be the royal subjects of a lush Renaissance painting.” Yet the beauty of Venice contrasts sharply with its underbelly of deceit, greed, and lingering antisemitism. Lila’s character, however, is the most resonant; her mixture of stoicism and bitterness grounds the narrative. Isabel’s voice, though sometimes melodramatic, captures the turbulence of adolescence. Secondary figures like Miriam and Morgenfeld add depth, embodying different modes of survival—warmth, denial, and complicity.
A richly atmospheric debut that confronts how art, memory, and silence shape families in the long shadow of the Holocaust.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781961864320
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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