Sharp speculative fiction, casting a skeptical eye on insular communities of all sorts.
A woman plans her escape from a Black enclave in this mind-bending allegory.
Curdle Creek, the setting of Battle-Felton’s second novel, has a population of 201 and is determined to stay small. Founded in 1864 as a refuge from lynching and disease for free Blacks, it’s established a series of odd rituals to run smoothly. Some are relatively benign, like a Running of the Widows, where women engage in a cutthroat race for available men; others, like the Moving On, are collective murders of residents in the name of population control and (the legend goes) fruitful harvests. But Osira Turner, the novel’s middle-aged narrator, is bristling against Curdle Creek’s ceremonies, having lost the Running of the Widows and learned her father has been selected for the Moving On. The debt to Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is obvious, but Battle-Felton is drawing from a deeper well of influences, including Toni Morrison’s lyricism, the time-travel elements of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and the alternative universe of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. Osira’s investigations into the roots of Curdle Creek’s ceremonies unlock a series of surprising, sometimes hallucinatory plot turns—the mysterious death of one of the town elders, a well that’s a portal into the town’s history—but Battle-Felton imagines this world exceedingly well. And she never loses sight of the novel’s central theme: how the need for communities to protect themselves unleashes its own anxieties and traumas. “Our ways are what save us—protecting us from them and from being like them,” Osira notes. But the death, loss, ghosts, and trials (literal and figurative) that she faces suggest that no amount of structure and doctrine can fully protect a community. The novel’s somber tone is firmly gothic, but it’s also richly open to interpretation.
Sharp speculative fiction, casting a skeptical eye on insular communities of all sorts.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781250362018
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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