From the popular Czech writer (I Served the King of England, 1989; Too Loud a Solitude, 1990), two more novels filled with wit, life, hyperbole, history—and pathos. Long ago, a young wife named Mary has hair that's long and golden and a young husband, Francin, who's manager of a brewery in a little town where the beer is distributed by two big dray horses named Ede and Kare (who sometimes break away for a wild run, their hooves tossing sparks). Life goes on normally enough for the loving Mary and Francin until Uncle Pepin comes to visit (and stays for life)—after which comedy, cross-purposes, and happy (usually) misdirections become the rule. Uncle Pepin's very elements are life, energy, lust, swagger, and comic mischief, and between him and young Mary, a counterbalance to the more earnest if lovable Francin is formed, at least until new times come around, radio is invented, styles change, and ``Everything is going to have to be shortened''—including Mary's long golden hair, a loss by barbering that turns life upside down, at least for a minute or two. So ends Cutting It Short, succeeded by The Little Town Where Time Stood Still, which opens eight years later, looks backward into history under Austria's rule while coming forward through WW II, and finds Uncle Pepin's spirit pitiably waning as Francin's waxes—and as Communism arrives ``and some other kind of time began.'' Francin's old love of motors and trucks will give him a happy new life as distributor of vegetables and other goods—until an empty militarism brings calamity, followed by the piteous death of the faded Uncle Pepin and, from Hrabal, a concluding elegy for times past and gone that ranks with the most sweetly moving ever—period. Lyric, poetic, political novels so entirely filled with imagination and life—and tears—that they burst wonderfully and gloriously at the seams.
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-42225-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
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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