A fine collection by an enduring, endearing master.
Simple, lyrical, immersive stories about work, neighbors, and the land.
Poet, fiction writer, essayist, and farmer: The 87-year-old Berry wears all those hats in these latest glimpses of Port William, the Kentucky community drawn from the town where he has lived for decades. The stories here span a period from the 1930s to 2021, and many feature a familiar Port William character and Berry alter ego named Andy Catlett at different points from boyhood to old age. In “A Conversation,” the boy learns about work and tools from hired hand Dick Watson. In the collection’s longest story, “A Time and Times and the Dividing of Time,” Andy at 84 sees through his own older and boyhood eyes that Dick’s work made him “more complete than almost everybody” Andy came to know. That regard for labor well done then stands out as woefully absent in “The Art of Loading Brush,” when elderly Andy hires men to replace a fence only to find that the crew had “messed and blundered its way to the completion” of something merely “passable.” The stories often touch on Berry’s longtime crusade for sustainable agriculture, on “the departure of the people and the coming of the machines” that inhibit such farming and erode the links, the “membership,” that help define a community. Berry also writes about the wit and usefulness of good stories. An episode (“The Great Interruption”) in which a boy falls from a tree while spying on an amorous couple is notable mainly for its retelling afterward by the area’s better yarn spinners until it becomes for Port William “a part of its self-knowledge.” Berry has that gift for entertaining amid serious intent, and the many lighter, very human moments in his elegiac, cautionary, wistful stories keep them from sinking into jeremiad without diminishing his message.
A fine collection by an enduring, endearing master.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64009-581-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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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