A fascinating premise laid low by a weak and overly simplistic message.
An extraterrestrial cluster of amino acids and hydrocarbons inside a falling star initiates the merging of the Earth’s populace into one hive mind.
Set in 2014, the story begins in Marquette, Michigan, after a small meteor falls to Earth. When advertising exec Carole Veilleux—unknowingly infected by a tick days earlier—bites bakery owner Booker, she begins a chain reaction that spreads the strange contamination (the “mind-merge thing”) throughout Marquette and eventually all over the world. Billions of people become part of the hive mind: Booker’s preteen child, Layla, who wants to transition to a boy; autistic cop Lana Lannister; 61-year-old Jewish doctor Evelyn Schlapp, who’s having an affair with her rabbi; and more. Within weeks, the people of Marquette were “reindeer herders in Sápmi, Scandinavian furries with mixed fursonas. They were the Bajau Darat, forced out of the sea to live a sedentary life, they were Lego designers, Maasai, Kazakhs, Swiss bankers and snake milkers. They were David Bowie. That was really… cool.” Even hate-filled people like neo-Nazi thug William Willoughby find themselves seeing the world through more compassionate and accepting eyes. Suddenly, everyone knows everything about everyone else. Humankind becomes collectively more intelligent, more understanding. Months pass and humans make jaw-dropping scientific and societal advances. But what would happen if the hive mind suddenly disappeared and the world’s populace was forced to return to living with only their individual thoughts and limited knowledge? The speculation surrounding the planet’s organisms (humans, animals, plants, etc.) being part of a massive hive mind is intriguing, particularly as it deals with issues like racism, sexism, and systemic discrimination. The potential is there for some brass knuckles-to-the-skull revelations, but the payoff is decidedly underwhelming: “The best people could do was to try and make [the world] a tiny bit better.”
A fascinating premise laid low by a weak and overly simplistic message.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781837866892
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Solaris
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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