An immersive psychological portrait of one man’s battle with lifelong anger and guilt.
A young man’s troubles follow him after he trades his spiritual calling for life as a teacher.
Inspired by the life and teachings of Thomas Merton, Niall O’Malley leaves a stressful Ph.D. program to enter a Benedictine monastery in western Massachusetts full of “high hopes for communing with God and soothing his erratic temper.” But after five years, he abruptly abandons the refuge he sought in that religious vocation for a job teaching history at a public high school in a downtrodden town on the New Jersey coast within sight of Manhattan. Despite that fresh start, brightened even more by a blossoming romantic relationship with Lluvia, a kindhearted Puerto Rican immigrant who’s single-mindedly devoted to his happiness, and who he believes “embodied the goodness and joy he’d been seeking,” and a close friendship with his fellow teacher, Trinity, Niall struggles to find fulfillment in his new role, concluding that he’s “not really built for teaching.” One of the major impediments to his job satisfaction is his student Colton Chadwick, the son of a wealthy family whose parents place him in the school in hopes of curing his disciplinary problems. Niall suspects Colton of racist sympathies, and he reinforces his antipathy toward the student by persistently interpreting even the boy’s most innocuous words and actions in a negative light. In spare but quietly eloquent prose, Emmons unobtrusively shifts her story between Niall’s years at the monastery, where his rewarding immersion in the simple daily routine of the contemplative life is marred by an increasingly ominous conflict with his fellow monk Brother Thomas, to his life in the classroom and back again, even briefly exploring the roots of the sometimes-explosive rage that has scarred him since childhood. In the comparatively brief second section of the novel, she fashions a resolution of these parallel plots that honors the depth and complexity of her protagonist’s internal turmoil, as she recognizes that changing one’s life is not as simple as changing its outer circumstances.
An immersive psychological portrait of one man’s battle with lifelong anger and guilt.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781636283623
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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