Wagner’s clean, sturdy prose imparts an inevitability to what is taboo, but some gratuitous mystification prevents a...
The elemental passions of two siblings fuel this first novel, whose contemporary trappings fall away to reveal a fable outside time.
Janet and Stephen are lovers in a vaguely defined England. They are youngish and have careers in the arts and live together in low-key harmony. Janet gets a call from a lawyer: Her mother died three weeks ago and has left her a small house. Janet is startled; surely her mother died years ago in America? Still, she drives north, alone; though she suffers from seizures, brief electrical storms in her head, she can handle them. The tiny, remote house is by the sea. Outside is a stranger named Tom, a garage mechanic. They have matching keys. Janet’s protests that she is the sole legal owner fall on deaf ears; Tom’s in possession. Into this straightforward narrative Wagner (Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and the Story of Birthday Letters, 2001, etc.), the American-born literary editor of The Times of London, has inserted memories—Tom’s, of being raised alone by his mother (who would eventually abandon him); and Janet’s, of being raised alone by her father in America. Tom’s mother told him fairy tales, of a mother abandoning her baby for a magical seafaring lover, of a seal who could change into a woman. Janet’s father’s stories were based in reality: traveling to England on a liner, meeting the love of his life, returning with his bride. The turning-point comes when Janet smashes her cell phone; there will be no return to Stephen. She is not afraid of Tom; they share the same mother. Blood is calling to blood. Barriers dissolve as Tom and Janet make love and later swim alongside a pair of seals. They share a feeling of loss, but they have found each other, and the chance to make a new home (a key concept).
Wagner’s clean, sturdy prose imparts an inevitability to what is taboo, but some gratuitous mystification prevents a complete surrender to her spell.Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-393-06148-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
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
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There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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