Gorgeous and alive.
A fable of being and belonging from the author of The Map of Salt and Stars (2018).
This is the story of two artists who are connected by secret histories. This is also the story of a trans man struggling to come out to the people closest to him and a woman who found new love even though her way of desiring seemed impossible in the time and place in which she was born. This is a story about immigrants. This is a ghost story, and the specters that haunt its pages are literal and figurative. And this is a story about birds. What binds all these disparate strands together are Joukhadar’s deep sympathy for his characters and his powerfully poetic voice. One-half of the novel is set in contemporary New York. The narrator is unnamed because the name he was given at birth no longer fits him. As he tries to express his true gender, he addresses his dead mother as if her absence makes his transition impossible. “There is so much of you—and, therefore, of myself—that I will never know,” he writes. Laila Z’s tale begins in 1920, in French-occupied Syria. After her family immigrates to America, she becomes an acclaimed illustrator of birds. The unnamed narrator knows her work because she was his ornithologist mother’s favorite artist, and, when he stumbles upon Laila’s diary, he finds the key to unlocking himself. Joukhadar is writing for a general American audience about people who are often categorized as “other.” Both narrators are Syrian American, as are most of the significant characters. Many of these characters are also queer. The author creates a world for his characters in which readers who are perhaps unfamiliar with the communities being represented can find their way around, but he does not feel compelled to translate and explain. And Joukhadar’s prose style—folkloric, lyrical, and emotionally intense—creates its own atmosphere.
Gorgeous and alive.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2149-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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