A short, lively volume that will leave the reader wanting much more.
Rashidi (The Outcast, 2014, etc.) returns with a second volume of short stories about Iran.
As in his previous collection of short fiction, Rashidi offers a selection of stories of village life in pre-revolution Iran. In “Game Over,” a group of children awaits the death of a neighbor’s sick mother, hoping their neighbor will return their ball after she’s gone. In “Romance In The Lane,” a curious boy watches a harried man, continually humiliated by his wife, fall into the arms of another woman. In “Batool,” a lisping orphan girl appears suddenly in the life of a family, only to disappear again. Told from the perspectives of boys and young men, these stories observe daily scenes with a fresh energy that withholds moral judgment but revels in absurdity. At times poignant but more often funny and lighthearted, the tales resonate across rifts of culture and time. This volume is shorter than its predecessor; its stories, more polished and lean. Rashidi’s voice, while strong before, has become more assured, spinning sentences effortlessly: “The bulk of Agha Kamal’s body resembled one of those long, oval Persian melons, crowned by his small head, on top of which was a bald patch, bordered with thinning frizzy hair....His tiny feet stuck out from the bottom of his short crinkled trousers like a pair of dormice.” The prose is measured and distinctive, drawing the reader in with little more than rhythm and description. Narrators are generally stand-ins for the audience: the objects of interest are their neighbors, as unknowable to the reader as they are to the narrators (or as our neighbors are to us). Rashidi accomplishes much in these five stories.
A short, lively volume that will leave the reader wanting much more.Pub Date: March 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1785072802
Page Count: 66
Publisher: New Generation Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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