While grand in scale, the story creates specific individuals caught up in a richly detailed world.
Shimoni’s literary novel chronicles characters and events at the beginning and ending of the 20th century.
In 1904, Dr. Ed McKenzie, a veterinarian from Oxfordshire, England, winds up as a doctor for humans in the remote Indian city of Leh. How he got there is a long story, and an unhappy one. Some explorers and adventurers journey to the area to “make a name for themselves,” but McKenzie is there for a more forlorn reason: He has lost his wife, Kate, to the affections of an explorer from Italy. According to Kate, what the Italian lacks in muscle, he makes up for in charisma, a quality in which McKenzie is sorely deficient—but the doctor has a plan for vengeance. Meanwhile, a revolutionary from Russia named Poliakov is brought to the hospital in Leh in bad shape. Poliakov had been traveling with a caravan from the city of Kashgar, but what was he doing in Kashgar to begin with? The narrative skips forward 90 years to explore the repercussions from the events that transpired in the early part of the century. The text is extensive—at over 1,000 pages, there is much to get through (subplots include such wide-ranging fodder as the death of Alexander II of Russia and one character’s affair with a married woman in Israel), and the dense style of the prose can make for slow going (“a man could make a name for himself from diseases, not only from antiquities but from illnesses too, terrible as they might be”). Still the story spins so many distinctive elements—from the characters to the locations—that it coalesces into a unique look at the distant and not so distant past.
While grand in scale, the story creates specific individuals caught up in a richly detailed world.Pub Date: March 30, 2023
ISBN: 978-0921332909
Page Count: 860
Publisher: Crowsnest Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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