Static. Gracefully written, but, after the first few chapters, nothing builds until the uplifting (and unearned) close.
Shapiro (the memoir Slow Motion, 1998; Picturing the Wreck, 1996, etc.) returns with a “poor me” novel about a woman whose perfect family has disintegrated before her eyes.
Rachel, the classic (and classically annoying) victim-heroine, is constantly resentful—her mother, her friends, her children, her husband have all disappointed her. Husband Ned has moved out of the house, toddler Josh may have developmental problems, and daughter Kate is in a boarding facility for troubled teenagers, where she’s just picked a fight with another girl. Despondent, Rachel looks back over her life with Ned. They fell in love in New York, where she was a grad student and he an aspiring artist. When she became unexpectedly pregnant, they married and moved back to Massachusetts, into a house his parents helped him buy; he took a job as a teacher and they doted on their daughter until the summer 13-year-old Kate returned from camp no longer their sunny, athletic, loving daughter, but a sullen tattooed and pierced adolescent (camps allow tattooing and piercing these days?). The incidents Rachel recalls—rudeness, shoplifting—could describe any teenager, but Rachel sensed that Kate’s problems were deeper, even though Kate seemed to rally after she learned Rachel was pregnant. But after unexpected complications kept Kate out of the birthing room, she began a downward emotional spiral that was exacerbated when she accidentally dropped seven-month-old Josh. Soon, she told her psychiatrist that Ned had sexually molested her. No one believed Kate, who’d also begun cutting herself, but Ned lost his job and took up selling real estate for his decent if insensitive parents. Rachel describes her own mother as evil and deranged, although her behavior seems no worse than that of most aging, neurotic mothers. Rachel and Ned visit Kate’s school, and after the girl acknowledges she did a terrible thing, the family joins in a group hug.
Static. Gracefully written, but, after the first few chapters, nothing builds until the uplifting (and unearned) close.Pub Date: April 8, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-41547-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
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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