A collection spotlights 14 tales of madness, the possible existence of extraterrestrials, and inescapable fate.
The mere title of “Imminent Doom and His Own Demise” is indicative of all the author’s stories, which are decidedly darker in tone than Frode’s (A Dream of India, 2015) preceding book. In “Doom,” Victor’s torn by his wife’s suicide and is certain that both his and the world’s extinctions are inevitable. It likewise features a recurrent theme among the tales, one of a typically cruel destiny. “On the Stick,” for example, follows robotics engineer Switch, who picks up hitchhiking art student Art, only for the two to cross paths later in a startling turn. Similarly, in the title story, spiritual teacher Penelope bequeaths to her student Caldero a ring that may explain the mystery of the cosmos, while Al-kaid Al-Uqdah of “The Seven Lights” has seemingly been chosen (by the universe, perhaps) as owner of a book and potential key to alien contact. The stories repeatedly tread murky, sometimes-horrific territory. In the memorable “Token,” magician Theodore ignores a warning to steer clear of the bad-spirits–laden oak thicket behind his duplex and fashions a wand from a sapling with frightening results. “The Faithful,” too, is violent—earning a caution from the author in his introduction—but undeniably potent, a brief tale of groups of varying religions suffering persecution and much worse. There are, however, signs of optimism, like the woman in “A Cup of Coffee,” whose kind gesture for a homeless man could lead to an unusual but benevolent payback. Frode also injects a good deal more humor in this collection. Character names, for one, are frequently playful, including the conspicuously christened Destiny (“On the Stick”), plastic surgeon Dr. Cutter (“Knife Skills”), and head of Archaeological Collections and Archives, Archibald Richland VanDigguer (“Collections”). As in the author’s earlier work, his narratives are illustrative, even with minimal action. The contemplative protagonist of “Chayton’s Sky” primarily stands still, “watching the cloud slowly and ponderously writhe and quietly collapse little-by-little eventually into the chaos of the accompanying cloud masses alongside it or into the sky itself.” Often grim but always ruminative stories that turn out to be as eccentric as they are indelible.
Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-312-76150-6
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 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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