A middle-aged man with secrets renovates a haunted house in this historical/mystical Western drama from Willerton (The Lady in White, 2012).
Combining the seemingly disparate themes of home repair and shamanic ghost stories, Willerton splits his novel between the tragic tale of the 19th century Mulvaney family and the modern-day redemption story of house restorer Tucker Whitby. Initially dismayed by the enormous size of the house, Tucker decides to buy the storied property from freshly divorced real estate agent Lynn Anderson after he realizes that the house is, in fact, alive. Built in 1869 by corrupt lawyer Cyrus Mulvaney, who later hanged himself from the rafters, the house was given sentience by an unnamed shaman. The mystery of the shaman’s identity is slowly revealed as Tucker and his crew of teenage construction workers restore it. When a pregnant teenager seeks asylum from her unhappy family, Tucker attempts to conquer his past emotional wounds so he can help her. The narrative engages because it embraces its mystical premise. When asked what it’s like to restore a haunted house, Tucker says without irony, “Building with a spirit-partner is something new, but it’s added a flavor to building that I’ve never had.” Like the Bob Villa of haunted houses, Tucker’s love for the project becomes a conduit for him to address the horrors of his own past. Oddly, the house acts as an occasional lovelorn narrator, adding insight into the mystical happenings. Each of the supporting characters wrestles with believable personal struggles, which illuminates their interactions with others. The descriptions of the restoration work, however, are perhaps too meticulously detailed, although restoration aficionados will undoubtedly relish the passages that describe how each section of the house is carefully brought back to life. Tucker’s emotional demons and the impromptu family he creates are fleshy enough to imbue the sanding, painting and rusty stud removal with genuine feeling.
A warm, sometimes overly described tale of a simultaneous restoration of a home and homeowner.
Pub Date: April 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615974026
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 2, 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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