For his 19th book, the incredible Koontz (Mr. Murder, 1993, etc.) kicks off a change of publisher (the brand-new Tartikoff/Warner imprint) with his first-ever collection. Strange Highways holds two novels, plus 12 novellas and short stories, all but the title novel published before but here tastefully if not totally rewritten. ``Strange Highways'' itself tells of alcoholic Joey Shannon's return in 1995 to Coal Valley, a ghost town once emptied of people by the federal government when 4,000 acres of burning coal seams beneath it threatened to collapse and turn everyone to cinders. Joey can be redeemed from his alcoholism if he saves young Celeste Baker from crucifixion by his psychopathic brother, P.J., a bestselling suspense novelist (!) whom Joey once helped cover up a murder. Time hurls Joey back into 1975, and again and again in replays of the same scene he fails three times to stop his brother's hammerstrokes before the power to believe gives him the needed strength. Whatever its appeal, this is gimmicky, joylessly uninspired hackwork. Also here is ``Kittens,'' Koontz's first published story, a neat piece from 1966 that turns on the forced characterization of a religious zealot. The story that shows greatest promise, though, is ``Twilight of the Dawn,'' about an architect whose adamant atheism costs him his beloved business partner. When his wife dies in an auto accident and his son comes down with bone cancer, his atheism remains intact. But what begins with a Tolstoyan sweep fades into a breeze when two miracles attest to the truth of an afterlife. The closing novel, Chase, first published in 1974 under the pseudonym K.R. Dwyer, is straight suspense with no supernatural trimmings: a Medal of Honor winner may be the weird killer who murders fornicators on lovers' lane. Despite some weak moments and dumb dialogue in passing, the suspense holds and won't disappoint fans. Strange highways—but little feeling of freshness or originality. (First printing of 500,000; Literary Guild main selection)
Pub Date: May 23, 1995
ISBN: 0-446-51974-X
Page Count: 512
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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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