A strange and winning historical romp about a family plagued by doubts and gas.
Potter presents a fictional biography chronicling a family’s journey through the key events of the 20th century.
In his debut work of fiction, the author presents the story of Dr. Ernst Grimm Lohr (known to all simply as Grimm Lohr), a physician born in Turin, Italy, in 1889 (“in the age of genteel senility, nascent science, colonization and empire-making”), as told by his grandson, Elias Deane Grimm Lohr. Elias notes the ways in which his grandfather’s life touched on and sometimes epitomized “the leitmotifs of Western civilization—evangelical expansionism, a striving for the infinite, the spirit of economics encoded in the language of the bourgeoisie.” Grimm Lohr specializes in the human digestive system and its gases, which brings him to the attention of GeneralLudendorff and the German war machine during the First World War. He conducts experiments (including one in which 100 nuns are given a diet of uncultured buttermilk, uncooked reptiles, and raw cabbage), and after the war he becomes a successful author of books about his specialty, including The Gases of the Masses and Melodies of the Large Intestine. He fathers Elias’ dad, Irving, and Potter’s narrative follows this young man as he rebels (“I shall not arrange the affairs of my life around the bowel habits of other men, Father!”) and joins the Hitler Youth. The narrative moves on to focus on Elias’ own story, including his long sojourn in Hollywood working on such epic series as Heaven, Hell, Pus. Potter chronicles all of this with a remarkably dry, deadpan sense of humor that manages to remain understated while the author repeatedly makes flatulence-related jokes (poor, hapless Elias spends time late in the book at a getaway called Spirit Wind). The book’s very generous length betrays no trace of self-indulgence; the author layers every chapter with a delightful combination of historical and literary context (one character is described as “the kind of man Chaucer would have called a ‘stout carl’”) and Pynchonesque absurdities.
A strange and winning historical romp about a family plagued by doubts and gas.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781665773270
Page Count: 728
Publisher: Archway
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2026
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
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.
A boy band cruise is the site of one woman’s post-divorce healing.
Annie never meant to end up alone on a Boy Talk cruise, but that’s exactly what happens when her sister breaks a leg and has to bow out of their vacation. Now Annie is sharing a cabin with a stranger, stuck on the cruise ship American Fantasy with the 1990s band—and thousands of their biggest fans, known as Talkers. Annie doesn’t consider herself a Talker, even if she was a fan back in the day. But reeling from a recent divorce and dealing with complex feelings about turning 50, Annie throws herself into the distraction of the trip. What she doesn’t expect is to truly connect with the music, the band, the other fans, and herself. As Annie observes, “This was why people turned to religion or watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar instead of alone in their living room. It felt good to be a part of something where your passion was celebrated instead of mocked.” All the Talkers dream of having a special bond with “the guys,” but when Annie actually does meet Keith, a Boy Talk member who’s clearly going through a hard time, she wonders if their connection is real or if she’s just as delusional as the other (mostly) women on the ship. Straub depicts a wonderfully immersive world aboard the American Fantasy, one where each woman assigns herself a favorite guy and everyone is bedecked in Boy Talk merch. For five days, the Talkers live in a fantasy world where the only thing that matters is their connection with a band that meant everything to them so many years ago. As Annie puts it, “Inside her head, which is where she heard the music, it had touched some lever so deep that it couldn’t be reversed…the music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life.”
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217046850
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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