A portrait of a loving, brotherly relationship served in an inventive narrative device that explores the bonds of family,...
In Kirby’s debut novel, two brothers in their 60s unexpectedly become the executors of a $50 million estate, with instructions to disperse funds as they see fit among the citizens and institutions of their childhood hometown.
Brothers Joe and Darren are piqued when a lawyer sets them up on a conference call and tells them that a seemingly impoverished neighbor from their hometown has died and included the brothers in his sizable estate. When Joe and Darren fly to Glenville, Indiana, to hear the details, they discover that while no money is being given to them directly, they are now responsible for choosing how to give away the $50 million to Glenville’s inhabitants and businesses. As Joe and Darren begin to explore how Glenville has changed since their boyhood days, they find many people have died, moved away, or grown into entirely different, more mature versions of themselves. The book adopts a vignette-style narrative, where each chapter is anchored by the exploration of a new person’s life story, with asides about Joe’s and Darren’s relationship and experiences helping to flesh out and sustain the narrative. After speaking with a young waitress about how difficult it is for young people to find work in present-day Glenville, Joe reminiscences about a relatively cushy adolescent summer job helping weigh trucks—though very little truck-weighing, and a vast amount of basketball with neighboring children, took place. Like a Midwestern version of The Canterbury Tales, the book is rich in anecdotes from midcentury Middle America, but it lacks a compelling throughline. While the plot does deliver on its eventual promise, the chapters’ drawn-out pacing tends to drain away any urgency. The prose is rather dry: “The next morning Joe and I had a meeting set up with many of the church leaders in town to talk about their various community outreach programs. Again, John Bourke had helped us with tracking down the right contacts and paving the way for a meeting. We really didn’t know how to handle this category of service provider.” Nevertheless, the relationship between Joe and Darren is deeply felt and genuinely emotionally resonant.
A portrait of a loving, brotherly relationship served in an inventive narrative device that explores the bonds of family, responsibility and the changing nature of time.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1634130042
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Mill City Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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