A thoughtful and evocative collection of tales and poems.
This varied collection of short stories and sonnets delves into themes of life, death, love, and war.
Morrissey opens his thoughtfully crafted book with an introduction recounting the trials and tribulations of self-publishing a book of collected works at a time when streaming platforms are grabbing potential readers’ attention. After plans to traditionally publish a collection fell through, Morrissey was inspired to create Twelve Winters, a press that focuses on innovative stories for avid readers. He stresses that “the worlds created through fictive imagination…will always come…to their fullest fruition via the participation of the reader.” This opens the door to allow readers to bring their own interpretations, and their own inspirations, to the stories and sonnets that follow. The collection is divided into three sections of short stories (“Crowsong Stories,” “Transitional Stories,” and “Early Stories”) and one of sonnets. The first two parts, especially “Transitional Stories,” contain deeply descriptive, imaginative, and sometimes haunting tales; the author excels in setting an atmospheric and natural scene, namely in the evocative stories “A Wintering Place” and “Communion With the Dead,” which wrestle with ideas of life and death in vivid, descriptive prose: “He had the mad notion this was not Angela at all but a stranger staging a malignant prank, or even some otherworld demon toying with his soul.” In the third part, he turns the spotlight toward characters; often, the narrators are flawed men living ordinary lives, and though some rely on tired tropes (such as attractive, empty young women), the stories are short, powerful, and simply written, making the reader’s interpretation an important contribution. The sonnets embrace similar themes of growth and change (“Seedlings,” “Obsolescence”), death (“Shroud,” “Pilgrim,” “Acts,” “Dignity”), and the beauty found in everyday life (“Ingots,” “Symmetry”). Morrissey does an excellent job of blending vastly different stories and sonnets together to create one cohesive color—and then places the paintbrush in the reader’s hand.
A thoughtful and evocative collection of tales and poems.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781733194990
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Twelve Winters Press
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2023
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
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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