Gauzy romancer Bradford (Angel, 1993, etc.) offers a middling grabber in which a woman's great loves and happy life are destroyed by violence and death, and she begins the long climb back. Mallory (``Mal'') Keswick is blissfully married to English Andrew and is the mother of preschool twins. The family retreat from New York City, where Andrew is an ad exec, is ``Indian Meadows,'' a classic colonial house in northwestern Connecticut. In 1988, the Keswicks will have been married ten years and are much in love; the twins are adorable; the house and grounds are exquisite- -of a ``gentle serenity,'' Mal thinks. Life is perfect. Then there's a brief trip to London and Claridges, with their suite sporting a fireplace and a baby grand. Life is indeed fine. Trying for a baby and wondering whether Mal's archaeologist father (separated from her mother for ages) will find another mate, and why lovely, kind Diana, Andrew's mother, doesn't remarry, is about all there is to ponder family-wise. From London, the pair visit Diana in her 1563 estate in Yorkshire, where Mal discovers a Tudor- era diary. Then home for Christmas. But in that 1988 December, the unthinkable happens: In one insane instant, Mal's family is gone, shot dead by carjackers. In her agony, Mal plans suicide, but eventually she will be forced to fight through her grief and live again. Along the way, there will be encouragement from Diana—but also the dear ghostly presences of those she has lost. At the close there is a new career and the promise of a new relationship. The sunshine half of this novel is a fun glide through Beautiful Living, and the dark stuff has a weeper potential for the susceptible. Stronger and simpler than Bradford's recent others. (Literary Guild main selection; $450,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-017723-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
IN THE NEWS
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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