Beautifully written and powerfully compelling.
The story of a lifelong friendship born in hardship and tempered by adversity.
Growing up in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, in the 1950s, Vernice and Annie are best friends who share an unhappy bond: Both have lost their mothers. When Niecy was 6 months old, her father murdered hers. Annie’s abandoned her when she was still “womb-wet.” As girls, they’re inseparable, but their paths diverge in young adulthood. Cautious, sensible Niecy goes to Spelman College, where she finds a community of strong Black women, then marries into a wealthy family. Desperate to find her mother, Annie runs away from home and embarks on a journey that will take her to some of the less savory corners of the Jim Crow South. Even though they’re separated by distance and circumstance, their closeness endures—as does the trauma of mother loss. Niecy and Annie are both rich, captivating characters and the ways in which their lives complement each other is emotionally satisfying—for them as well as the reader. As Annie puts it, “Nobody would for one second think to call me shy if I stood next to Niecy—who has been a young lady since the day she was born. And with me around, nobody would ever call Niecy poor or homely. In that way, we kept each other from being the thing we most didn’t want to be.” This is Jones’ first new novel since An American Marriage (2018), and it’s reminiscent of that critically acclaimed and bestselling work. As in her last book, the author interrogates social injustice through the lens of personal relationships while exploring the ways in which it shapes those relationships, and she does this in language that is intimate, conversational, and musical all at once. For instance, this is how Niecy recollects an encounter with a kind woman: “‘Oh Cher.’ The sympathy in her voice was thick and sticky like Pet Milk. I opened my lips like a baby bird, starving in a forsaken nest.”
Beautifully written and powerfully compelling.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9780525659181
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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