Small-scope horror tale set in Manhattan by the author of Reprisal (1991), Reborn (1990), and The Keep (1981). A diversion from Wilson's malignant-entity series (see Tessier, above), not to be confused with the new television sitcom Sibs. The twins Kara and Kelly Wade, once as pert and bright as the Doublemint Twins, are now into their thirties. They've parted. Kelly's a nurse at St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, while Kara's home with a degree in women's studies, writing a feminist book. Kara fled Manhattan because, secretly pregnant with a Manhattan cop's baby and knowing the cop would never leave hateful New York, she's had their daughter, Jill, without telling him. Now Rob Harris, the cop, is a detective in Homicide and calls Kara to tell her that Kelly has fallen from the twelfth floor of the Plaza under grisly circumstances. Kara identifies her sister's vastly mutilated corpse, then uncovers a secret life around Kelly. Kelly had a multiple-personality disorder, according to her psychiatrist, Dr. Gates, and as ``Ingrid'' would put on a red- leather minidress, pick up men in the Plaza Hotel's Oak Bar, then, upstairs in her room, have sex with them gratis, often two at a time. During one of these scenes a lover bit her shoulder. The pain drove out Ingrid, and horrified Kelly found herself servicing two men and leaped through the window. Now, does Kara have the same personality disorder, produced by the same childhood trauma (incest with their father) that Kelly had revealed under hypnosis? Kara goes under hypnosis as well and indeed a new Kara, ``Janine,'' appears and starts writing notes to Kara. Janine, too, is a post midnight sexpot. But we quickly sense that Dr. Gates has faked the twins' disorder and is himself ``Ingrid'' and ``Janine''! Or is he, too, being directed by an evil entity? Kara's nine-year-old Jill, a budding feminist, has all the novel's best lines, especially when objecting to the cleavage in a Penthouse she finds in Rob's bathroom. Otherwise, standard stuff.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-913165-61-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1991
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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