Family is about more than blood in this tenderhearted and touching novel—a riveting read.
A set of adopted twins have a lot to discover about their Albanian heritage and themselves.
Drita and Petrit “Pete” DiMeo, the brother and sister at the center of Aliu’s perceptive, poignant second novel, couldn’t be more different. She is an academically gifted achiever who made it out of their hard-luck hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut, through work and determination, going first to an in-state university, because it was affordable, and then to graduate school at Columbia University, because she could. Drita has a nursing degree and is studying public health, determined to help the world, but after Jackie, their adoptive mother, suffers a stroke, Drita returns to help her and to work as a visiting nurse in the town she thought she’d left behind. Pete, meanwhile, is a charming ne’er-do-well, a hard-drinking heartbreaker who skipped town with his drug-abusing girlfriend, Shanda, and their sweet-spirited young son, Dakota, and then let shame keep him away from his family. When Pete falls in with a group of Albanians in the Bronx organizing on behalf of the Kosovo Liberation Army and Shanda and Dakota turn up on Drita’s proverbial doorstep, each of the twins begins to learn more about their family and identity, each other and themselves, lessons more complex than they first seemed. As she did in her debut, Brass (2018), also set in Waterbury, Aliu tells us an American story with Albanian inflections, deftly toggles time and perspective, and introduces characters—not only Drita and Pete, but also Jackie, Shanda, and others—the reader will not soon forget. Writing with warmth and sensitivity, compassion and a clear-eyed command of the narrative, she brings empathy and generosity to these characters’ experiences—their disappointments and hopes, the questionable choices they make and the consequences of those decisions that they, and we, may not have predicted.
Family is about more than blood in this tenderhearted and touching novel—a riveting read.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593732274
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
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
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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