Low-key, oddly unemotional soap, from the author of Rhythms (2001), etc.
Infidelity, followed by endless introspection.
African-American Asha, a globetrotting photographer, has more than her share of lovers—and can’t understand why she’s inexorably attracted to the man who just married her best friend. Granted, Ross Davis is a handsome, sensitive, hardworking architect, but that shouldn’t be enough to dazzle a sophisticated New Yorker like Asha, especially when he pledged his eternal love for Lisa at the church in front of all their friends and family. And Asha and Lisa have been friends since they met as children in a poor Brooklyn neighborhood. Could it be that Asha is attracted only to emotionally unavailable men because, years ago, her father abandoned her understandably angry mother for another woman? Moving right along to Ross’s point of view, it’s clear that he’s not ready for the whole commitment thing, fearing that he’ll have to sell out to afford Lisa’s dream of owning a Harlem brownstone or a spacious suburban house. Though he’s a considerate, upstanding man who believes in fidelity, he’s overwhelmed by the responsibilities of marriage and unable to resist temptation when Asha makes it clear she’s interested. His naïve new bride misses all the signs of the impending affair, but she’s devastated when it finally happens. Where did she go wrong? She took care of Ross in every way—how could he break her heart? Then Lisa’s mother reveals a long-hidden secret: She once had an affair with Lisa’s father’s best friend and had no way of knowing for nine long months whether the child she was carrying was his or her lover’s. Lisa ponders this judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged situation for a while and is glad there are no children this time around. Meantime, Asha’s mother explains the catastrophic breakup of her marriage in bitter detail, and she and Asha fight anew, unable to heal the old wounds. But life goes on—and new love awaits all.
Low-key, oddly unemotional soap, from the author of Rhythms (2001), etc.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2002
ISBN: 0-312-28191-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
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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