An artfully rendered tale about finding oneself in love.
Two mismatched friends become something more in Bel’s Paris-set literary novella.
Paris, 2018: Céleste, a sensible architect, gets a call from her closest and most bohemian friend, Valérie Chaibi, a lesbian “multi-media poet” and urban nomad who is perpetually crashing in other people’s apartments. Valérie is calling to ask for Céleste’s help for the first time in their friendship: Will Céleste return Valérie’s 12 overdue books before the library closes and Valérie’s exorbitant late fees become astronomical replacement fees? Céleste agrees, but while collecting the books from Valérie’s current “arrangement,” she comes across a broken picture frame—a keepsake that made it out of Algeria when Valérie’s parents fled the war there, one of only two objects Valérie moves with her from place to place. (The other is a yucca plant.) Knowing Valérie would be heartbroken if she came home to discover the frame shattered, Céleste decides she will get it fixed and sneak it back into the apartment without Valérie realizing. When the plan goes awry and the books are not returned, emotions flare unexpectedly, and the opportunity for Céleste and Valérie to become more than friends presents itself. But can two women from such different places and with such different desires ever have a functional relationship? Bel is a lovely stylist, and her prose sparkles with surprising and memorable imagery: Discarded socks are “tartan croissants”; cemetery steps are “slug-snotted.” The dialogue crackles as well. When Valerie (who refuses to get a full-time job to sustain herself) demands, “Cél, tell me what it means to have the ‘freedom’ to faddle over quinoa,” Céleste responds, smiling, “You always go for quinoa…when you mock the middle class.” The book threads the tricky needle of neither taking itself too seriously nor allowing its characters to become caricatures of young Parisians. This narrative is brief, but the feelings it contains are deep.
An artfully rendered tale about finding oneself in love.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781399997485
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Scatterpunk Press
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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