Deeply provocative in its quiet contemplation.
A young woman’s platonic but passionate relationship with her mentor affords her insight into both the past and her own possible futures.
When we meet the main narrator of this languid novel of ideas, she’s a young woman fulfilling an unpaid internship at Rydéns, a prestigious publishing house in Stockholm. A woman from a stolid middle-class Swedish family whose parents “dutifully went off to work without any particular career ambitions,” the narrator is overwhelmed by her own inexperience. She has to learn “from scratch: what to wear, how to use the printer and the photocopier…” Also, how to navigate the standard interpersonal politics of any office, which, in this particularly heady profession, also include entrenched positions on the nature of art, the function of publishing, and the ideology of commerce, as Rydéns struggles to place itself at the forefront of modern Swedish culture while still maintaining the prestige of a past steeped in traditional publishing values. Introverted and serious in nature, the narrator feels more kinship with literature of “genuine purpose” than she does with the sort of books her contemporaries are more likely to champion—easily marketable novels with “a clear message” but written in “dull prose, lying heavy and dead on every single page…as if the authors had followed a template for significant depictions of contemporary society.” The narrator’s iconoclasm soon catches the eye of Gunnar, Rydéns powerful editor-in-chief, whose own sensibilities are a reliquary of a rapidly vanishing age. Gunnar takes the narrator under his wing, grooming her to take over his position running Andromeda, the avant-garde imprint he founded. Over the next many years, the two form an enduring bond, centered around their love for ideas and the glimmering impossibility of something more they both feel developing between them. But when Gunnar’s ill health forces him into retirement, the narrator is left alone to examine the true nature of their relationship, of her identity within the systems she has helped to preserve, and of the art she celebrates. A confident, erudite novel, comfortable with developing at its own pace, Bohman’s latest adds to her growing cavalcade of young women with old, enduring ideals.
Deeply provocative in its quiet contemplation.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781635424188
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
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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