A flawed but fascinating novel about the birth of the oil industry in the Gulf states.
A World War II–era American oil engineer finds himself in Arabia in Wesley’s historical novel.
Hank Simmons is an engineer at Standard Oil, and though that doesn’t entitle him to free gas, it has kept him from getting drafted to fight in WWII. Instead, he has been fueling the Pacific fleet from the safety of San Francisco. The vast petroleum fields of the Persian Gulf are about to be tapped by Western oil companies, however, and there are more jobs requiring experienced engineers than there are men to fill them. He isn’t surprised when his boss makes him an offer: a three-year stint at the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, or Aramco, helping to build a pipeline between Bahrain and a new refinery at Ras Tanura. Hank takes the job without much deliberation; he’s excited to contribute more to the war effort, and, after all, One Thousand and One Nights was his favorite book as a child. On the flight to Dhahran, he meets James “Mac” MacPherson, a seasoned oilman of Scottish birth who helps Hank get his bearings in the unfamiliar desert land. As Hank sets to work, he finds himself at the center of a dizzying political situation involving American, Arab, and Italian workers as well as commercial, military, political, and religious agendas that don’t always align. The author’s prose is simple but effective, as when describing Hank’s first look at Arabia through an airplane window: “Hank and Mac took turns looking at the desert below. In the late afternoon, the only signs of life came from the drilling rigs. As soon as the Saudi crude reached the surface, its gases were being flared off. The fires looked like torches marking their descent into Dhahran.” Wesley’s attempts at drama fail to register strongly in this exposition-heavy novel that often reads more like a memoir. Even so, the book provides a rare window into the birth of one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and impactful industries: oil extraction in the Persian Gulf.
A flawed but fascinating novel about the birth of the oil industry in the Gulf states.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 339
Publisher: Enfield Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2023
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
