A sensitive depiction of the power of both love and land.
A standoff between a rancher and the government—dead-set on seizing his herd of cattle—spirals dangerously toward a violent confrontation in this debut novel.
For decades, the Bureau of Land Management has been increasing the limits on grazing rights in Nevada, supposedly motivated by issues of environmental protection. Harlan Hale, a rancher all his life with more than a thousand head of cattle, stubbornly refuses to comply, defiantly citing his constitutional rights. Will Bearfoot, who works for the BLM, is ordered by his boss to return to the Midas Range—he grew up there—and convince Harlan to relent before the government is compelled to take more aggressive action. But when Will arrives, the area is a virtual tinderbox of conflict. The supervising BLM agent, Elmer England, died as the result of a chimney fire, though some suspect foul play was at work. A fire is started at the BLM office—a message of warning—and then a BLM official shoots and kills one of Harlan’s bulls, provoking a possible escalation of reprisals. Then a BLM official is jumped by masked men and mercilessly beaten, and Will’s father, Rodney, is badly injured when a bomb explodes in Will’s truck. Meanwhile, Will deals with the awkwardness of his reunion with Jordan, the wife of John Henry, Harlan’s eldest son. They were in love with each other once, but Will was accused and convicted of grand larceny, a felony that ruined their relationship, ended his dream of attending college, and inspired him to skip town. Borgos seamlessly braids several intersecting plotlines into a unified tapestry, artfully capturing the way the traumas of the past intransigently grip the present. The writing is plain and even folksy, allowing the characters to powerfully speak for themselves. Jordan, in particular, emerges as a profoundly complex character, struggling to reconcile her attraction to Will, which comes unbidden but not entirely unwelcome. Finally, this isn’t a proselytizing manifesto for either governmental process or libertarian freedom—Borgos’ portrayals are far too nuanced to fall into the trap of ideological partisanship.
A sensitive depiction of the power of both love and land.Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9975726-1-2
Page Count: 280
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2017
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
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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