Picaresque, but with serious matters of faith, love, and political wrangling at its fast-beating heart.
Subversive satire of the collision of Chinese state bureaucracy, academia, and religion.
Yan turns from the village settings of many of his earlier novels to a campus in the heart of Beijing. In the heavens above the National Politics University, his allusive yarn opens with a pointed exchange between deities: Buddha asks Jesus whether he’d like help coming down from the cross, the Dao asks whether he’d like to go higher, and Jesus responds, “I am at this location that is neither high nor low, and when people see me, they see the suffering people must endure.” That life involves suffering is a point on which all can agree, and so, too, do the proponents of China’s five major (read "approved," or perhaps better, "tolerated") religions, engaged in a perpetual round of tug of war. The only real winner there, Yan notes, is the political machine behind the religious training center, just as the house always wins at gambling. They should be battling along with their peers, but Gu Mingzheng, a young Daoist, and Yahui, an 18-year-old Buddhist nun, are smitten with each other. Alas, star- and doctrine-crossed, things don’t go easily for the two, especially when a shadowy god—perhaps Old Scratch himself—called Nameless starts tinkering with mortal affairs, driving one principal character to suicide and Yahui to the point of madness, about which she says, “My shifu always said that religion is the domain of the mentally ill, and whoever is perceived as being mentally ill on account of their religious belief is a true disciple.” It’s no hallucination when the assembled gods come calling with an offer to transcend earthly travails, but instead Yahui settles down with Gu in a nondescript Beijing neighborhood. Notes Yan in an afterword, “I hoped to write a small self-aware novel about how, when holiness and secularity meet, they have no choice but to kiss.” And so they do.
Picaresque, but with serious matters of faith, love, and political wrangling at its fast-beating heart.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780802162199
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
© 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.
