A smart, unorthodox, and delectable superpower tale.
A man burdened by visions featuring multilingual words possesses a remarkable ability some believe could threaten the world in this thriller.
Caught in a wildfire, California teacher Jon Wanamaker and his bus driver friend, Ernie Renssalear, dodge an unknown assailant’s gunshots. As if that weren’t enough, they later find floating in nearby Lake Isadora a bottle with a brain and note inside. The cryptic note references the Upsweep Project and Amelynd Island, both of which reporter Remedy Conover learns about for an article she’s writing. She’s shocked to discover that four years ago, every human subject in Upsweep, a secret government-funded study, died except one—her ex-husband, Jon. Since the project, Jon has intermittently seen words, like printed text, overwhelm his field of vision. The words appear as “ribbons” (digital ribbon boards) and in multiple languages, including Tlingit of Jon’s Native American clan. But they also lead Jon to an extraordinary ability; some associated with Upsweep want him to develop this power while others, such as the gunman at the wildfire, consider him too dangerous to live. Various parties converge in Sirretta Valley to either help Jon or somehow ensure he doesn’t become a menace. Cray’s (Piercing Maybe, 2018, etc.) twisty tale unravels at a frantic pace. Plot turns make some of the characters all the more striking: Individuals from Jon’s Alaskan hometown, for example, blame him for the death of a young girl. Furthermore, the story explores multiple sclerosis-afflicted Remedy, whose disability is a condition, not a flaw. It even precipitates the indelible image of the reporter using a kitchen broom as an aid instead of a cane. Little can be said regarding Jon’s ability without spoiling the narrative. But it’s on full dizzying display in a smashing final act that should leave readers debating who the real villain is—or if there is one. Unsurprisingly, the prose is linguistically appealing: “Firefly-like sparkles flashed as daylight caught the tiny shards of glass sprinkled across the man’s filthy cheeks.”
A smart, unorthodox, and delectable superpower tale.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-940317-08-3
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Third Quandary Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
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
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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