An engrossing statement of where we are, told through the eyes of a reluctant survivor.
Haunted by the death of his girlfriend, an Israeli-born painter of mixed racial origins struggles with displacement, the complications of a new relationship, and life under Donald Trump.
The painter, who goes by the name Christopher Bell, blames himself for the death of his girlfriend Malika Jordan, a politically provocative artist, who got into a fatal car accident after he let her drive off in a rainstorm following an argument. So he brings a ton of emotional baggage to his romance with Ana Ramirez, an exiled Venezuelan journalist. Following tragedies of her own, she is reinventing herself as a podcaster specializing in “the precariousness of ‘home.’ ” She and Chris share a strong sexual attraction, beleaguered outsider status, and simmering anger over Charlottesville and atrocities perpetuated under the new administration. But, frustrated with Chris’ remoteness, Ana moves to Mexico City, where her family has fled from Caracas. Chris, who has abandoned his art, is left alone in his house by the woods in Eastern Long Island to contemplate what to do with his life: “I didn't believe there was such a thing as meaning, but I knew the active pursuit of it was sanity.” Ultimately, he and Ana slowly put the pieces of their relationship back together, but with “genocides and fires and thousand-year floods already here,” there will be no escaping the harsh realities in store. For all that, Lazar's latest novel, following Vengeance (2018), is anything but a downer. His brand of introspection is page-turning, informed by his hip sensibility, musical way with language, and sensuality. As deep a dive as Lazar takes into one man's alienation—from himself as well as the world around him—the book soars with timely truth.
An engrossing statement of where we are, told through the eyes of a reluctant survivor.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64622-111-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
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
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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