An edgy, swiftly paced thriller with laudable female characters.
A metal band guitarist realizes he’s an essential part of a satanic cult’s dark prophecy in this supernatural novel.
Alec Lowell takes a gunshot to the heart during a performance with his Los Angeles band, the Great. Though the unidentified shooter gets away, Alec miraculously survives. His near-death prompts a reunion with Belinda Allen, the girlfriend he left years ago. When he learns the two have a son, Jake, Alec returns to Wisconsin with Belinda. While Alec is constantly paranoid that someone is watching him, Belinda suggests he make amends with his estranged family: his father, Brent, and younger sister, Ilene. But Brent, a devout Roman Catholic, had been abusive, which led to the Great’s ostensibly satanic stage performances—though they’re only for notoriety. Alec is later startled by the news that his dad had actually belonged to a satanic cult. Keeping an eye on Alec in Wisconsin is a reputed Great fan, Lucas, who readers know is a cult member. It seems the “secret Satan society” believes Alec is a prophet, who may play a role in the Dark Lord’s ultimate rise to power. But gathering intelligence on the cult is dangerous, as members target Belinda, Jake, and even Alec, when he proves to be an uncooperative prophet. Johnson’s (The Schoharie, 2017) thriller thrives on suspense, because many characters surrounding Alec may belong to the mysterious cult. Supernatural elements slowly creep in but don’t overwhelm the plot; Alec, for one, has an apparent healing capability. While the author truly excels at character development, including Lucas’ unsettling backstory, the men are generally dense and make questionable decisions. But the women are exceptional, from Belinda to the Great’s lead singer, Claire “Cleo” LeCroix, who calls everyone “hon,” a term either affectionate or condescending, depending on whom she’s speaking to. Despite the book’s heavy religious overtones, the story stays fairly middle-of-the-road, attributing good or evil to individuals rather than their beliefs. The final act piles on twists, and though one is predictable, the others are genuinely shocking.
An edgy, swiftly paced thriller with laudable female characters.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-3948-4
Page Count: 376
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2019
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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