An engrossing and disconcerting revenge tale that’s gleefully outlandish.
In this fantasy, an expert in preparing orgasm-inducing food courses enters a kingdom to seek retribution on his master’s behalf.
Morminiu is a phril (male) whose destination is the Royal Carami—a city inside a giant monster. As the capital of the Green Kingdom, the Carami accommodates the noble Houses. Morminiu first sees Hitissh Leomi of the House of Lormont and requests his protection and freedom of ascent. Morminiu is a Recipear, like his master, Hitissh Plabos, the kingdom’s former Master Recipear. Recipearium is an art form that involves mastering Recipes, as a course can provide phrils with gastric orgasms. Morminiu, a proficient Recipear, garners fame among those in the Carami. But his real purpose is revenge for Plabos; Morminiu blames Leomi for his master’s banishment from the kingdom. After months in the kingdom, Morminiu gradually rises in title and, at the House of Phriliras, believes he’s found a suitable companion in High Priestess Valiria. But he’s also amassed enemies, such as the current Master Recipear, Harissh Tathar. As it turns out, Plabos has his share of foes as well, and Morminiu comes to realize that his vengeance may be directed at the wrong target. Gurgu’s (Chronicles From the End of the World, 2011, etc.) intent in this offbeat fantasy is clearly to provoke readers, as he fills his pages with startling imagery. Along with a high volume of “excretia” and “vomitus,” there are intermittent Recipes that sometimes include exploding worms or raw meat. But the author has created engaging characters within a bizarre, indelible world. Phrils and phriliras (females), for one, resemble humans and use swords as weapons. But both genders evidently have the same sexual organs (vulbas) and some, like Morminiu, have gills. Moreover, the protagonist has depth; he seems to have genuine feelings for Valiria and, at one point, questions whether Plabos’ Recipes are art or simply vice. And with Gurgu’s rich descriptions, readers won’t likely forget characters reside in a huge creature: “The walls were formed by thousands of thin bones connected by dense cartilage, looking like a fence of deformed and bent poles held together with mud.”
An engrossing and disconcerting revenge tale that’s gleefully outlandish.Pub Date: April 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-87945-0
Page Count: 312
Publisher: White Cat Publications, LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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