A sprawling comedy of horrors, the possibility of its spilling over into a third manifestation certainly welcome.
This tangy second go-round for Fox’s quarter-ton vampire gives readers a run for their money at telling the bloodsuckers from the leeches.
Having blown himself into 187 white rats at the end of Fat White Vampire Blues (2003), New Orleans vampire Jules Duchon is gathered by his friend Doodlebug Richelieu and reassembled (mostly; he’s missing a critical element of the male anatomy) into the mountainous undead he once was. The High Krewe of Vlad Tepes, an arrogant and wealthy company of Eastern European vampires living outside New Orleans, wants Duchon to find whoever is mutilating members of their association. Duchon comes into contact with a wide array of savory and unsavory characters—and finely described slices of New Orleans—allowing Fox to throw jabs and sling darts. Says Doodlebug of his new home: “California is different from the rest of the country. A combination of widespread Wiccanism and Hollywood liberalism means that blood-drinking is not as stigmatized as it would be here.” Sass and smarts are also in his bag of tricks, whether he’s poking fun at Internet searches or driving home a little social commentary on racism and greed. The plot is intricate enough to be more mystery than horror tale, with a complicated land scam that turns out to be something of a red herring, while grave tampering, lost loves, new loves, rotten apples, and morality plays are all kept aloft in sensible procession. Then the story accelerates into a mad whirligig, with Duchon’s dead mentor reappearing, his 40-year-dead mother reappearing (with his penis in tow), and a bride of Frankenstein (his mother wants her to be the bride of Duchon) appearing. Centrifugal forces could easily take the story down to crash and burn, but Fox commands the pyrotechnics and pilots to a sweet landing.
A sprawling comedy of horrors, the possibility of its spilling over into a third manifestation certainly welcome.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46408-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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