A measured but gleefully absurd tale with a simply wonderful cast of assorted characters.
Estranged sons of a long-dead professional daredevil clash in Stranger’s farcical novel.
Neurotic 30-something Marcus Speed exists in perpetual fear of entropy. He’s also a germaphobe who abhors others’ constant “fumbling” of the English language. Unsurprisingly, he has no friends—save his mother, Minerva, with whom he still lives in Nashville. Marcus is in for a shock when he meets his half brother, Ace Junior, an Alabama native with “bushy Elvis sideburns” who uses the word themas an adjective (“you said your mother moved over with them Arabs”). Their father, Ace Speed, a traveling-circus daredevil, died performing a stunt, driving a car strapped with a jet-assisted take-off unit. Junior and his brash mother, Bernice Crabtree, bring chaos when they stay with Minerva and Marcus, but when Ace’s band of sideshow-performer friends shows up, it may be too much for Marcus to handle. Many in this motley cast have their own troubles; there’s bad blood between Junior and his ex, who kicked him, their daughter, and his mother out of her trailer. Stranger’s story was inspired by an urban legend in which a rocket-powered Chevy Impala supposedly disintegrated its driver. It’s the colorful characters, however, who drive this novel; Marcus’ mother comes with a fascinating backstory (and a trust fund), and scenes with Marcus’ psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Clinger, introduce patients just as eccentric as the protagonist. The author shines a bright light on the notion of “freaks,” (who, in this case, seem to be the so-called normal people), who lead the most entertainingly tumultuous lives. While the novel’s abundant dialogue teems with amusing banter, the story also hits a few lulls, as in a prolonged discussion of sideshow performers that only has a minor connection to the plot. Still, engaging mysteries abound, especially surrounding the late Ace Speed’s extended family.
A measured but gleefully absurd tale with a simply wonderful cast of assorted characters.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2023
ISBN: 9798988389712
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Old Curmudgeon Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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