A bold dystopian tale that predicts a chilling entry for 2020 in the history books.
This dystopian thriller follows a scrappy group of survivors during a Pandemic Era.
In the year 2090, a series of viral plagues has nearly dismantled civilization. People no longer work, living on government rations in semipermanent lockdown. Lily Brayburn is the hopeful center of her community, comprising about 20 people who live in an apartment building. She copes with a dreary life in the Pandemic Era, filled with a Cannibal Gang and victim-snatching “cure crews,” by believing she’ll see her parents again. Most residents respect her leadership. An over-the-hill military veteran named Faulkner is the exception. Though valuable for his sharpshooting skills, he’s a misogynist who loathes women in command. After prisoners escape from the Novel Corporation’s Homeless Detention Center No. 10, Lily finds a teenager hiding in her building. This is 17-year-old Mabel, who is six months pregnant. Though Lily tries to secure Mabel in her room, Faulkner is canny and finds out about her. He has failed to turn any residents against Lily in favor of his own leadership, but he plans to use Mabel’s presence during a routine head count by government officials to his advantage. Meanwhile, Mabel’s lover, Ben, remains at large, trying to avoid the Novel Corporation’s undercover agents, who always want fresh victims on whom to test vaccines. Tameem uses a touch of black humor to follow humanity’s downward spiral in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. A succession of increasingly horrid coronaviruses damages society until the Great Plague of 2082 kills almost everyone. The wealthy, including the racist Gloria Van Leuven, create Environmental Zones to enjoy. Medical specialists like Victor Stark search for cures in a morally bankrupt system that disenfranchises people and then uses their bodies. Faulkner, standing in for the 45th president of the United States, is the author’s “stable genius” who uses misplaced swagger to bully everyone. Some readers may be put off by a pulpy thriller set against the backdrop of a real-world health crisis, but others will find it cathartic. Solid worldbuilding allows the finale to boil over into a potential sequel.
A bold dystopian tale that predicts a chilling entry for 2020 in the history books.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888363-43-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
