A consuming work of profound poetical depth and moral power.
In Weaver’s historical novel, a Norwegian farm girl in North Dakota is assaulted by a prominent man, placing the family in a grimly precarious position.
In 1906, Karl Haugen, a low-ranking farmhand working for a despotic family in Norway, flees in the dead of night with his family to America. They settle in Skye, North Dakota, but Karl dies in 1925, and his wife, Petra, follows him to the grave shortly thereafter, leaving their four children—Emil, Dagmar, Sally, and Jenny—to fend for themselves on the family farm. In 1933, when Sally is only 17 years old, she is raped by the town doctor, Robert McConnell, while sedated during a medical procedure. She’s slow to tell anyone, especially Emil, now the head of the family and prone to mercurial violence, since she believes no one will take her word over the doctor’s. However, she becomes pregnant from the assault, making the secret impossible to keep. Emil leaves the baby girl that results with an unsuspecting family on a train and begins to plot a ghastly revenge upon McConnell, one as inventive as it is macabre, mesmerizingly depicted by the author (“The slimmest of trimming would make the boot rub slightly. Rub slowly. Over time”). The stoic Haugens are an unforgettable family; it seems impossible they could blend in well anywhere in the world. The author paints a bracingly unsentimental view of their toughness—Jenny draws this astonishing conclusion after the family weathers some terrible losses: “You’re never going to go soft on the world.” Weaver’s prose is beguiling, achieving a mercilessly spare poetry (“Ahead, a field mouse hung on a barb. A gray, masked bird sat nearby, a shrike, a bird who killed its own kind”) that perfectly matches the only kind of love of which the Haugens are capable: quietly inexpressive but also inexhaustible. This is an impressive literary achievement, a genuinely moving novel without a single line of treacly kitsch.
A consuming work of profound poetical depth and moral power.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781960250995
Page Count: 390
Publisher: CalumetEditions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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