A sly, unsettling hybrid of social satire and domestic thriller.
A brittle marriage and a too-perfect au pair upend a failed writer’s life in this clever, unsettling novel.
Wayne, author of six previous novels, returns with an ingenious dissection of marriage, masculinity, and privilege, propelled by a gimlet-eyed wit. The opening scene—a Manhattan fundraiser where tuxedoed men “like inflatable penguins” mingle over wagyu sliders with their “spectral, hollow-cheeked wives”—establishes both the novel’s milieu and the lopsided dynamic between Steven, a 45-year-old writer living off a long-ago bestseller, and his high-powered wife, Lucy, who bankrolls their life. His mortification is complete when he accidentally streams a phone notification to his writing class in which his wife confirms she’s paid his monthly stipend. Wayne excels at these micro-humiliations, exposing the psychic toll of dependency and artistic drift. But he also has fun sending up contemporary pieties, such as a school production of Hansel and Gretel retooled into a “generative dialogue” about loneliness. Instead of pushing the witch into the oven, Gretel asks her why she is “not practicing kindness.” After the sudden death of the family’s nanny, the novel’s tempo shifts into something more sinister and unnerving. Steven persuades his wife to recruit a young Norwegian au pair, Astrid, who exerts a Mary Poppins–like charm on the children, sidelining Lucy’s position in the household. Meanwhile, Steven’s creative paralysis gives way to an erotic fixation that Astrid reciprocates despite their 21-year age gap. Wayne is alert to cliche but complicates it by making Astrid less fantasy than catalyst, drawing out a buried childhood narrative that revives Steven’s writing even as it scrambles his judgment. The novel’s back half pivots into a thriller, culminating in a death and a trial that transforms private disgrace into public spectacle. If the resolution seems fanciful, it also sharpens Wayne’s point: In a culture hungry for confession, even failure can be repackaged as art.
A sly, unsettling hybrid of social satire and domestic thriller.Pub Date: June 30, 2026
ISBN: 9780063457232
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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