From the author of A Toast to Justice (2013) comes a novel about a would-be football star bent on revenge against his high school classmates.
The tragedy of Long Island–resident Robert McKay began in 1971 during football practice at Hillside High. His future as a possible all-state athlete vanished when fellow player Eric Halls crushed his ankle during a scrimmage. Now, McKay is a plumber, frequently servicing the properties of some of Long Island’s wealthiest residents. When he hears that his graduating class is holding a 40th-anniversary gathering on Long Island, he decides it’s time for revenge. He tracks Eric Halls to a motor lodge and empties his gun into him at point-blank range. Nassau County detectives Henry Gates and Tina Delray quickly begin investigating what appears to be a crime of passion. McKay, however, isn’t finished. He next targets Maureen, his old sweetheart, who drifted away after his injury. At the gathering, she is surprisingly kind to McKay—but his resolve is set. The plumber enlists the help of buddy Tim Hardman, who knows to keep his mouth shut (or else). Crime novelist Tanz provides rich characterization and back story as his detectives close in on McKay. Gates’ assessment of Halls’ murderer is impressively concise: “[I]t was not a professional....[T]he number of shots fired indicated rage and overkill...it was personal.” Tanz also makes it delightfully easy to root against his killer, writing McKay as a boastful dirtbag. Mentions of “American Pie” and other hits from the early 1970s transport readers; unfortunately, too many references to movies and TV shows burst the narrative bubble. At one point, instead of describing a location, Tanz alludes to the set of Hill Street Blues to paint a scene. The tale eventually comes to an exposition-heavy conclusion, not unlike a television drama itself.
A visceral thriller from an author unafraid to reveal his influences.
Pub Date: March 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1497443624
Page Count: 194
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2014
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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