A first novel by a Sri Lankan-born, Indian-educated writer now living in Scotland begins with much promise, but loses steam as obvious, plot-driven events rush an abrupt resolution. The story opens at a fashionable Calcutta lakeside rowing club where Putul sits drinking; he’s been in Scotland for three years working on his doctorate and thinks he’s entitled to some leisure before joining his uncle’s business. It’s at the club that he runs into the second protagonist, Meena, a distant cousin and young poet who is also just back from Scotland. The third is Choto, the only son of Meena’s family servant, who would rather drink with his buddies than take the jobs his mother finds for him. Finally, there’s John, a young Scottish friend of Putul’s who comes to India to find his family’s roots. All four are impressively delineated, the settings vivid, and the storyline—until it speeds up to reach the finish—current and credible. Choto, hoping to please his mother, starts driving a decrepit cab. Meanwhile, Meena, caught up in her family’s attempts to find a wife for her brother Dada, falls in love with Ranjan, whose sister might marry Dada. Thus far, the leisurely narrative seems to be setting readers up for a long, satisfying tale. The pace changes, though, when John gets into the cab driven by Choto, who has recently given a ride to a group of political agitators. Both men are killed when the car goes off the road and explodes; rumors abound that the accident was caused by a faulty part manufactured by a company with political connections. There are no happy endings for Meena and Putul either: the marriage of Meena’s brother to another woman ends her relationship with Ranjan, and Putul, shocked by John’s death, decides to leave India. All of these developments appear forced, a means to quickly finishing off a story whose characters deserve greater care and exposition. One of those rare novels where more would be better than less.
Pub Date: May 15, 1999
ISBN: 1-861590-52-0
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Phoenix/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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