A celebration of a woman who worked behind the scenes.
The life, work, and passion of Jessie Redmon Fauset, a lesser-known figure of the Harlem Renaissance, is examined in this historical novel.
“You’ve birthed most of us. It’s like you’re a literary midwife”: This is what her protégé Langston Hughes has to say to Fauset toward the end of Murray’s novel. Fauset, a poet and novelist in her own right, is best remembered as the mentor of Harlem Renaissance luminaries including Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay through her role as literary editor of the Crisis, a magazine founded by W.E.B. Du Bois and published by the NAACP. Not only did she rise to a position of prominence in the literary world—almost unheard of for a Black woman of her time—but she also went above and beyond to edit, uplift, and support her writers. One of the book’s most exciting moments comes when Jessie first interacts with the delightfully precocious 17-year-old Hughes, who has just written “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”and whose work she will continually champion and refine. But Jessie’s life is not without tribulation or scandal. Though we learn about her continual search to find a place for herself as a Black woman writer, much of the novel is taken up by her on-again, off-again affair with the married, and frequently prickly, Du Bois, whom she calls Will. (According to a historical note at the end of the book, Murray extrapolated the affair from information in David Levering Lewis’ W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography, 1868–1963, which called the pair “star-crossed lovers.”) At times, Jessie’s bullheadedness can be irksome, and readers may grow tired of the time Murray spends detailing her repetitive, and often saccharine, meetings with Du Bois. But Jessie Redmon Fauset is such a captivating figure that Murray’s success comes from bringing her accomplishments to greater attention.
A celebration of a woman who worked behind the scenes.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593638484
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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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