A stylish parable about the disconnect between inner and outer worlds.
A woman attempts to reign in her trickster friend in Leonie’s debut novel.
Since childhood, Elodie Ginsberg has been preoccupied with the circus. The 25-year-old illustrator is happiest when painting trapezists and acrobats. She spends each day in conversation with her mysterious friend Boris—a chaotic, childlike clown who’s been her constant companion since kindergarten. Although Boris seems to understand Elodie in a way that her hard-to-please mother never has, he also creates problems of his own. In the book’s opening chapter, for instance, Elodie must rescue Boris from a nearby pond, where he nearly drowns attempting a Harry Houdini–inspired escape trick. Things change when someone new moves into the house next door: a handsome, if standoffish, former professional cyclist named Ivan Lennard. Elodie is excited to have another relatively young person in the mostly elderly neighborhood—she inherited her house from her grandmother—and after an initial, unsuccessful attempt to befriend Ivan, Elodie shows up at his door with lasagna and a mango cake to welcome him to the cul-de-sac. She thinks she can break through Ivan’s shell, but it seems that Boris is bent on sabotaging things with his antics. Can Elodie overcome the intrusive Boris to forge a lasting human connection? Over the course of this novel, Leonie writes with a buoyant, offbeat prose style that effectively evokes the carnivalesque reality in which Elodie and Boris dwell. Here, for instance, Elodie is overwhelmed upon winning second place in an art competition: “I think someone’s talking to me, but I feel like I’m under water and have a tail instead of feet and gills where my ears used to be. I can’t process what they say, and I waddle. Eventually someone presses a sash, a check, and a gift card for a craft store in my hands.” Readers who can tolerate the deliberately maddening Boris will find much to enjoy in this mercurial novel, which shrouds an affecting tale of loneliness and longing in lively whimsy.
A stylish parable about the disconnect between inner and outer worlds.Pub Date: May 5, 2024
ISBN: 9789083370170
Page Count: 217
Publisher: Fidessa Literary B.V.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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