You know the expression “This is not your grandma’s epic novel”? Well, this is your grandma’s epic novel, anodyne but...
The history of a Midwestern town founded by Swedish immigrants, including both lives and afterlives, from 1889 to 2021.
“Over the years, the mail-order bride business had been fraught with pitfalls and disappointments.” Not this time. The big, ambitious Swede Lordor Nordstrom and the nearsighted little wife who answers his ad fall quickly, madly in love. Lordor goes on to start a family, to incorporate Elmwood Springs, Missouri, and become its mayor, and also to donate a panoramic parcel of land for its community cemetery. And then he dies. “Shortly after the funeral, the strangest thing happened. Lordor Nordstrom woke up.” Turns out, after people die, they remain as spirits in the cemetery, at least for a while; at a certain point the souls disappear from the gossipy spirit kaffeeklatsch for parts to be revealed. As this tale winds through the decades and generations, two communities flourish, one of the living and one of the dead. Flagg (The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion, 2013, etc.) does a clever job of tracking her clan of interconnected families through the decades, including a drive-by from Bonnie and Clyde, a visit from Harry Truman, four different wars, the birth and death of downtown, and finally modern plagues including drugs, unemployment, and deaths from texting. There’s even a murder mystery woven in, the untimely and suspicious death of a particularly beloved resident which the spirits are determined to investigate and avenge. Much of the fun of the book happens in the graveyard, with conversations like this: “I went to your funeral and sent you flowers.” “Thank you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to reciprocate.” “My hip doesn’t hurt anymore, but…I’m not happy….I hate that I’m dead, that’s why. I’ve been saving for ten years to be able to make that trip to California, and now I’m not ever going, and the ticket was nonrefundable.”
You know the expression “This is not your grandma’s epic novel”? Well, this is your grandma’s epic novel, anodyne but sweeping in its sweet way, full of home truths and consolation.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6595-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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