This collection's best stories show us why Minot should resist irony and never stop writing beautifully about women's lives.
Minot's first collection since 1989 begins with a story ironically titled "Why I Don't Write."
This doesn't seem to apply to Minot herself, who has written six books since 1986, but it does suggest the psychic toll of being a writer in an age of Twitter-size attention spans and yawning cynicism. "What do you do all day?" someone asks the narrator. The answer, both to this question and the one posed by the title, comes in the form of a disorienting collage of allusions to private heartaches, post-2016 political scandals, national tragedies, domestic chores, and pointed observations. ("Women writers without children: many. Women writers with children: few.") The nine stories that follow are a mixed bag. The most successful show why sustained engagement matters, especially for a writer like Minot whose gift is for illuminating revelatory moments in characters' lives rather than experimental fiction. Sometimes these moments are tragic, as in "Boston Common at Twilight," which explores a teenager's ill-fated decision to follow a stranger, a woman, into the city to buy pot from her and, later, the heartbreaking consequence of his failure to stop blaming himself. Elsewhere, the stories turn on happy, though somewhat old-fashioned, epiphanies. In "Polepole," a woman's brief encounter with the maid of a married man with whom she's just had a one-night stand in Kenya makes her determined to take better care of herself. Throughout, Minot is keenly aware of how men hurt women—as well as how women sabotage themselves. In "The Language of Cats and Dogs," another standout, the protagonist recalls the moment her writing professor propositioned her. Rather than tell him off, she sits frozen in his disgusting car, embarrassed by his cheesy pickup line and ashamed as though she's somehow to blame.
This collection's best stories show us why Minot should resist irony and never stop writing beautifully about women's lives.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-65824-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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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