A slow, sure novel that burns away the glamor of war.
A fictionalized account of the life of Norman Bethune, the Canadian war physician.
The narrative, composed of a series of letters, begins at the end of Bethune’s life. Addressed to a daughter he has never seen, Bethune’s letters at first seem merely informative. They include rambling accounts of growing up as the son of a strict minister, his eventual break with his father’s religion, his first unhappy marriage and, finally, his decision to fight in World War I and then join the republican cause as a doctor in the Spanish Civil War. The letters are framed by his current life at a makeshift hospital in China where he aids Chairman Mao’s campaign to drive the nationalists out of the mainland. Action-packed to be sure, and yet, the letters become more searching, weaving together world events with a history of Bethune’s love affair with Kajsa, a Swedish woman he meets in Spain during the war who becomes the mother of his daughter. Bock’s masterful narration gives a sense of the urgency of this world-changing moment, and of the exhilaration of being a player on a world stage, and from this emerges an unexpected portrait of Bethune as a manipulative narcissist who specializes in hiding his pettiness under a cloak of disinterested nobility. Bedazzled by war, Bethune trembles with awe when he meets Mao, but he cannot manage to maintain even the semblance of good relations with colleagues who are at least as committed as he to serving a common cause. Blind to everything but his high motives, he does not seem to register that Kajsa is under suspicion of being a spy. The novel’s strength lies in its masterful revelation of Bethune’s paradoxical combination of dishonesty and highmindedness. Bock (The Ash Garden, 2001) paints a picture of a fundamentally amoral, if politically pious, man who does not see that he loves war more than he loves peace.
A slow, sure novel that burns away the glamor of war.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2007
ISBN: 1-4000-4462-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
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
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