A minefield of a novel, whose cutting and often brilliant observations will delight and terrify those in the know.
A wryly amusing debut novel about pretentious New Yorkers acting pretentious.
Here’s the setup: A young writer is back in New York City, at a party “surrounded by the very people that [she has] spent the last five years avoiding” (by going to Europe, of course). Sitting on a white linen couch in her hosts’ fabulous Bowery loft, where she once lived as a guest of the couple she now despises, she excoriates her frenemies and enemies in a long, acerbic, and sometimes very funny rant: rich art owners (like the hosts) who think that by buying art, they become the “sole authority on the work” and then destroy it by licensing it for advertisement or squirreling it away; “people who called themselves artists and directors but in fact worked as content creators and creative directors”; conceptual artists whose pieces interrogate “notions of whateverthehell”; and rich people who cannibalize the taste of poorer friends, remaking their shabby home decor in fancier materials. No one is spared: not the narrator herself, who thinks she’s finally made it when she starts writing articles for fashion magazines about emerging artists and “the things that they cannot live without”; not the host, a mediocre multimedia artist whose love of art “was a trompe l’oeil patina painted with shit onto the sparkling bronze bust that was his inner idiocy, his enduring alcoholism, and…his sex-pestiness”; not the narrator’s more famous writer friend, who wears shabby clothing “in keeping with his idea of himself as a serious person” and reads only contemporary American literature and nothing in translation because he has “so much prose in the original to get through.” That some writers and artists would trade their eye teeth for a chance to earn a living doing something vaguely creative might belie the book’s investment in a very small, rarefied corner of New York intelligentsia and artiness. The narrator’s funny and self-indulgent meltdown about how guilty and morally compromised she feels accepting a paid assignment to review a luxury hotel in Miami will resonate with some readers. Others will have their bags packed before you can say “real artist” or “real writer” ten times fast.
A minefield of a novel, whose cutting and often brilliant observations will delight and terrify those in the know.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781668062951
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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