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 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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