A compellingly trippy journey.
In Weed’s novel, a woman follows in the footsteps of her father, a famed psychedelic researcher who mysteriously disappeared.
Thirty-something Esme Weatherhead talks to the “ghost” (memory) of her father, Gregory, who’s finally been declared dead after disappearing decades earlier. It’s 2024, and it’s been over half a year since she left behind her seemingly picture-perfect life in San Francisco to write a celebration of her father at his former cabin in Woodgate, Vermont. Gregory was an academic researcher and bestselling author on Indigenous shamanic practices who went missing in 2004 after leaving for a walk in the forest. After discovering notes her father left about a cave in the same forest in which he was last seen, Esme hires Lucas St. Pierre, a struggling geological consultant, to locate it (“maybe walking a mile or two in his shoes was the best way to find out what had happened to him”). Esme decides to “reconstruct [Gregory’s] research methodology” by experimenting with powerful psychedelic mushrooms—the same her father used—which trigger vivid hallucinations of him. The lines of reality start to blur, and the stakes increase when a longtime family friend, Sebastian Bonney (a former British television personality who now owns a surveillance tech firm), sets his sights on Esme’s new discovery of the deeper powers of these mushrooms. The narrative shifts between timelines and the perspectives of Esme, Gregory, Lucas, and Sebastian; this approach complements the psychedelically charged prose. A hallucinatory thriller is a fascinating concept, and the plot is a treat. Witty prose sits alongside stretches of juvenile profanity, along with occasional overstuffed sentences: “It was nearly tasteless and quite rubbery, like a very bland calamari, but he chewed and swallowed it anyway, and cut the flesh of the remaining sponges into ragged strips, leaving them on a sun-heated boulder to dry.” Still, the adventure overcomes such minor issues.
A compellingly trippy journey.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9798347021000
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2026
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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