A playful virtuoso with a deadly seriousness of purpose.
The prolific Boyle continues to have fun and make literary mischief with his latest story collection.
There's no reason why these 13 stories should seem so funny, as most of them confront individual mortality and some sort of cultural collapse. They run the gamut from the subversively real to the surreal in such a way that they blur the distinction between the implausible and the inevitable. The epigraph quotes the promise/threat in Willie Dixon’s “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man”: “I’m goin’ to mess with you.” And mess with you these stories do, whether it’s removing the blinders from a series of privileged and deluded narrators or messing with the reader’s understanding of where the author might be located in this artistic dynamic. “Key to the Kingdom” invites the reader to see the protagonist as the author, though there’s always peril in doing so with this trickster. Now branded as F.X. Riley, he's returned to his alma mater—where he was known as Frank—to give a reading, and he is given something of a celebrity’s welcome. “Not that he was a celebrity himself, or not especially—books were too obscure in this age to register to that degree on the social scale, especially literary books. Like his.” It’s a story that cuts close to the bone on themes of alcoholism, paternity, and academic suicide, making a strong case that its truth has nothing to do with how factual it might be. The title story doesn’t tempt the reader to confuse author and narrator, though it rings every bit as true and is very funny in the darkest sort of way, as complacency provides little protection in the face of “something like a billion and a half stinking people all hurtling toward the grave. Like everybody else in the world. Like her. Like him.” There’s a futurism running through much of the collection, whether it’s trying to avoid omnipresent facial recognition (“SCS 750”) or submitting to the tyranny of vehicles that take you where they want you to go (“Asleep at the Wheel”), but it seems like we’ve already turned the corner into that future.
A playful virtuoso with a deadly seriousness of purpose.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305288-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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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