An empathetic story of faith and desire.
Jaffe’s (The Genealogy of Understanding, 2014, etc.) coming-of-age novel tells the story of a Jewish adolescent attempting to square his homosexuality with the teachings of his religion.
On the cusp of his 16th birthday, Jake Stein notices a prohibition in the book of Leviticus that never caught his eye before: “ ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.’…Jake read further still: anyone who committed such abomination ‘shall be cut off from among their people.’ ” As part of a Conservative Jewish family in 1970s South Jersey, the dictates of his religion are important to Jake—and even more important to his father, Sol. At the same time, Jake has been fantasizing about some of his male teachers and engaging in sexual exploration with his best friend, Dave. Jake joins the school play in hopes of finding a distraction from this identity crisis, but it only makes things worse: The play is The Diary of Anne Frank, a story laden with heavy guilt, and he quickly becomes obsessed with the lead actor, Steve. Jake concocts daydreams around his unrequited attraction but ends up feeling as lonely as ever. He attends Princeton University after high school, still committed to trying to be a yeled tov—a good Jewish boy—but the temptations at college prove even greater than those in high school. Throughout the novel, Jaffe writes in a polished prose style that successfully captures Jake’s anxiety from his perspective: “Jake glanced quickly down at his book, but couldn’t read what now appeared to be one big blur. His stomach clutched and his breathing nearly halted. Streams of perspiration jetted out under his arms.” Along the way, he does an admirable job of locating Jake’s conflict in the particulars of Judaism and Jewish culture while also presenting a story that will feel relatable to a wide audience. Jake’s road to self-acceptance is a long one, and it will perhaps frustrate some readers. But the details of his experience are so particular and humanizing that most people will stick right with him to the end.
An empathetic story of faith and desire.Pub Date: April 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59021-671-2
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
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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