Great fare for lovers of police stories and a dead-on accurate portrayal of the era’s attitudes toward women.
The NYPD's "No Girls Allowed" sign fades in this fictional account of a real woman’s struggle for respect and success in a profession that men wanted all to themselves.
Men wanted all the manly stuff, anyway, like murders and armed robberies. The New York City Policewomen’s Bureau gave the gentler gender something to do, like arresting pickpockets, shoplifters, and hookers. But policewomen wanted more. In 1958, Marie Carrara (in real life, Marie Cirile) is a “handpicked gal,” chosen by her boss to assist male detectives in robbery stakeouts and drug buys. Note: assist only. “Girls can’t be real police, baby,” Marie’s cop husband, Sid, tells their daughter. “They stay inside, so they can’t get hurt.” Former NYPD detective Conlon's (Red on Red, 2011, etc.) novel follows the growth of a career and the disintegration of a marriage. In 1955, Marie joins in family laughter about the idea of “she-cops” who “might as well join the circus.” Then she passes the policewomen’s civil service exam and never looks back. Over the years she takes on difficult cases and realizes she isn't "a kid anymore, but a cop on a job.” In her marriage, Sid cheats while Marie would no more stray than be a Soviet spy. And he frequently beats her, which she puts up with for years. “You’re nothing without me,” he tells her, which cannot be further from the truth. They’re traditional Italian Catholics, and the word “divorce” would give their parents the vapors. So for a long time Marie publicly pretends to be in love with Sid. But she tells his lover on the phone, “Pick him up in the next hour, and I’ll give you a free toaster.” Meanwhile, day by day, she earns professional respect and eventually earns promotion to detective. There are no dramatic set pieces in the novel, yet it’s an engaging drama with cinematic potential. Society was on the cusp of major change, and the Policewomen’s Bureau would disappear in the early 1970s when people became police officers instead of policewomen and policemen.
Great fare for lovers of police stories and a dead-on accurate portrayal of the era’s attitudes toward women.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948924-07-8
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
