An often sweet collection of short stories that will appeal most to fishermen.
In this debut collection of short stories and one novella, a veteran charter boat captain spins yarns about the people who make their livings on the waters around Narragansett, Rhode Island.
In this collection’s titular novella, “Canyon Fever,” Capt. Frank Hardy takes his young and loyal first mate, Ronnie, and two of his longtime clients, the Booth brothers, out into the Northeast Atlantic Canyons on an overnight fishing trip. The trip starts out as an alarming success, with the quartet of experienced fishermen catching tuna after tuna with ease, but unfortunately, it doesn’t end that way. Hardy has been coping with the death of his beloved wife and only child to cancer, but soon he finds his own life in danger when his boat, the Lucky, starts to sink. Stranded on a makeshift raft in the middle of dark waters, the men must work together in order to survive—or be killed by the sharks hungrily circling the raft. “Canyon Fever” is accompanied by several shorter vignettes illustrating brief moments in the lives of others in this ocean-side community, including “Dad’s Wish,” in which a son charters a boat to Block Island to grant his father’s dying request, and “Unforgettable Striper,” in which a man confined to a wheelchair after a devastating injury decides that he needs one more trip out on the water to fish with eels at night. Author Denny is clearly an expert fisherman, and his love for and knowledge of his subject shines through with a warm, golden glow. However, he delivers occasionally clunky prose (“It was wise to seek permission from a lobster captain before you went to the Canyon and make sure you know which end of a high-flier is the right end”). Also, the book is so dense with insider fishing knowledge and terminology that, even with a helpful glossary, it may not appeal to readers who don’t regularly head out on the water. Still, Denny infuses his stories with simple themes of kindness, generosity, and goodwill that should be relatable to all.
An often sweet collection of short stories that will appeal most to fishermen.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4991-2205-3
Page Count: 184
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2015
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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