An impressive work of historical fiction that satisfyingly educates, illuminates, and entertains.
In this novel, a close-knit Irish family deals with a blend of personal struggles and politics.
Set in the Irish coastal seaport of Mullaghmore, Sligo, in the late 1970s, Shaw’s engrossing tale follows Terence Connolly; his wife, Bridget; and their teenage son, Tim, who collectively operate a multigenerational, rustic sheep farm. Terence has “mastered all the essential skills of the Sligo farmer: building trampcocks, slicing turf, raising sheep and cattle, sea gathering, weaving fish nets, and fishing.” As father and son work the fields in the shadow of nearby Classiebawn castle, a tragic event shatters the peace and tranquility of the community. A fishing boat owned by the castle’s occupant, Lord Earl Mountbatten, Queen Victoria’s great-grandson, is suddenly blown apart, killing the royal dignitary and several of his relatives, including his young grandson. The culprits reveal themselves as members of the Irish Republican Army who had murdered 18 British soldiers just hours before in opposition to encroaching British rule. Years later, as Terence travels with his aged father, Brian, a decorated war veteran, they become the target of British soldiers who question their allegiances, and they end up jailed and abused in Maze Prison in 1982. Tim is soon sent to America to stay with his aunt Mary in New York City, and it is there where his true coming-of-age begins. Though his new classmates at school are vicious and hostile, Tim overcomes that by distinguishing himself on the track team and outrunning all of his competitors. He also finds true love with aspiring athlete Gina Carbone. Based on historical events, Shaw’s novel presents an absorbing and unique narrative that explores familial struggles against a backdrop of violent political unrest. The author’s prose is delicate and descriptive, and the story is leisurely paced and appealingly atmospheric, with sharply drawn characters readers will remember. At one point, an emboldened Bridget tries to intervene on behalf of her husband’s incarceration with the help of her friend Maeve Grogan—a fearless liberator and feminist—despite a hunger strike by Terence and a revenge ambush on the Mullaghmore farm.
An impressive work of historical fiction that satisfyingly educates, illuminates, and entertains.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 283
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2022
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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