An empathetic and heartrending account of grief, and of the love that remains.
A young man with a chronic migraine condition tries to make sense of pain, its manifestations, and the harsh realities he must confront in their wake.
The novel opens in Tybee Island, Georgia, with the memorial of the unnamed narrator’s best friend, KJ, who died of a stroke at the age of 31. This event marks the protagonist’s first migraine, and from here on, the narrator is plagued with intertwining emotional and physical pain. Readers follow the protagonist as he incorporates vignettes of his daily life into his migraine diary—meeting up with a group of artist friends (painter Hildie and writer Dolores), going to his day job as a video editor, and occasionally stopping by the bar at Pinkie’s. But a few less benign worries present themselves in smaller things: an empty stool where KJ used to sit and the last drawing he gave the narrator, and the hints of sadness in Dolores, whom KJ was going to marry. Interspersed throughout are memories that show glimpses of what life was like when KJ was still alive as well as brief musings on loss, as described by various authors and philosophers. The narrator tries, time and again, to find a treatment that will soothe him completely, but grief is not an easy issue to resolve. The narrative voice is mature, placid, and steady throughout, even as feelings turn volatile, tensions rise, and doubts resurface. (“Maybe that’s the hard part to stomach, that…None of it makes sense…Pain can’t be a story.”) Powers adeptly navigates the protagonist’s internal turmoil and searing self-awareness. Readers shouldn’t expect a plot-driven narrative, but rather a grounded, contemplative journey with insights into the difficult process of healing. As the narrator points out, one must ultimately “go do things, even when it hurts, because nothing else is life.”
An empathetic and heartrending account of grief, and of the love that remains.Pub Date: April 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781956907254
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Jackleg Press
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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