This upbeat story triumphs thanks to its veracity and memorable characters.
Family members learn more about themselves and each other on a global journey in Reed’s novel.
At the heart of this moving work is a family matriarch, 75-year-old Lucinda Billings Maynard “Cinny” Posey. Though she is loath to admit it, Cinny has begun a slow slide into Parkinson’s disease. She’s hellbent against the concept of assisted living but is giving into assisted dying: She convinces her resistant adult children, Grace and Brian, to help her get moved into hospice care, where her plan is to starve herself to death. During her lengthy decline, Cinny scrawls page after page, finally stuffing these papers into seven envelopes and giving them to Grace as death descends. Her wish is to have her family take a trip around the world to scatter her ashes and those of her late English professor husband, Frank. Embarking on this journey are Grace, her husband, Jack, and their daughter, 24-year-old Chelsea; they are joined by bisexual Brian, his new bride, Ella, and her 16-year-old daughter, Sage. At each stop along the way, Cinny’s notes shed clarity on her relationship with Frank, helping Grace, Brian, and the rest to better understand their family’s dynamic. By the time the whirlwind pilgrimage ends, they are all more secure in their relationships with each other. The author successfully mines his personal history, including his background in academics and international travel, lending authenticity to this engaging narrative. The story is fast-paced, giving the reader the feel of the family’s rapid travel through Asia and Europe over three short weeks. The novel truly thrives thanks to its cast, beginning with Cinny, a child of Woodstock and a character with a capital C (Grace marvels, “She looks ten years older, but there’s so much of the old Mom there. Laughing. Joking. Giving me shit. I don’t have a clue how she manages to keep it up”) whose dying wish is to improve the lives of her twins, Grace and Brian, who have been clashing since sharing the womb. The result is a bracing novel in which an extended family actually returns re-energized from an exhausting voyage.
This upbeat story triumphs thanks to its veracity and memorable characters.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780825310263
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Beaufort Books
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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