An evocative, nostalgic coming-of-age tale and examination of bigotry.
A teenager at an East Texas summer camp in 1974 gets involved in a racial dispute in McCandless’ (Sour Lake, 2011) second novel.
The peace-and-love ’60s has devolved into the drug-addled ’70s, and 14-year-old high school student Tommy Lothrup is trying to navigate his way through a confused world. When his parents go off on a summer business trip, he’s sent to Camp Alexandra, known as “Alex,” a seedy summer camp that divides campers into two competing Native American tribes. Although many consider him a longhaired, pot-smoking hippie, Tommy quickly gains a reputation as a cerebral sort and wins friends. He meets a young African-American girl named Alyssha, who works in Alex’s kitchen, and the two become friends, although Tommy hopes that it’s more than just platonic. Unfortunately, racial prejudice is alive and well in East Texas and Tommy finds himself having to try to defuse a bad situation before something terrible happens. McCandless has crafted a multilayered novel. On the one hand, it may bring back memories of high school and holding onto one’s youth while moving relentlessly toward adulthood. On another level, the book is a searing examination of the insidious ways that racial hatred destroys people and relationships. The book also offers a nostalgic trip for anyone who ever attended summer camp and provides a clear snapshot of 1974. Readers who lived then will recognize such references as Boone’s Farm strawberry wine and the popular book Chariots of the Gods?. McCandless also provides engaging descriptions—“The stars skipped around me like living things”—and fills the book with humor: “Jack burped. I called, and raised.” Although the story takes place more than 40 years ago, it’s one that still has relevance in America today.
An evocative, nostalgic coming-of-age tale and examination of bigotry.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-692-26010-4
Page Count: 106
Publisher: Ninth Planet
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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