Intelligent mix of historical and modern-day vampirism, with the ninth return of Saberhagen's revisionist, sharing-and-caring Prince Vlad Dracula (SÇance for a Vampire, 1994, etc), the most honorable of the undead. The wry punning title focuses on both the wonderful new guillotine devised for safer, more humane beheadings during the French Revolution and the vampire's traditional neckjob. In 1996, newlyweds Phillip and June Radcliffe are kidnapped by ``Mr. Graves'' (Vlad) and beautiful Constantia (a sexy fifteen?—no, closer to four hundred) and locked up in a desert hideout where they must review a five-hour tape that recounts the history of vampirism during the heyday of the French blade. The two are told they've been sequestered for their own good. But is this Graves a lunatic? Gradually, they begin to grasp the hidden message in the tape. In 1792, an American ancestor, also named Phillip Radcliffe, was sent by George Washington to deliver a message to Tom Paine in Paris. There, he happened to perform a good deed for Vlad, who swore on his honor that he would protect Phillip. At the same time, Vlad's archenemy, his younger brother, Radu, who had been buried decapitated over a hundred years earlier, managed to get his head back on and has once more set out to destroy Vlad. Vlad can't kill Radu because of an oath he gave his father that he would protect his brother. Phillip is arrested by revolutionaries and is sentenced to death. Radu sets a trap for Vlad that depends on Vlad trying to save Phillip. The modern Phillip manages to escape the desert hideout and in fleeing attracts Radu. In both ages, Phillip is bait for the brothers' lethal Machiavellian traps. Meanwhile, we are given much background on the development of the guillotine, as well as on wax-casting for a museum of celebrities in Paris. Neat, sober Saberhagen and immensely engaging.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-85799-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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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