Fascinating, detailed and absorbing.
In Cave’s debut novel, a shady Iranian businessman seeks to use the 1970s Iran Hostage Crisis for his own financial benefit.
While no one would accuse London-based businessman Qays Tutunchi of being overly scrupulous, no one could deny his skill at turning a profit, for himself as well as for his partners. And while Tutunchi is far from pious, he’s adept at negotiating the turbulent political waters of Ayatollah Khomeini’s post-revolutionary Iran. So when Fred Walter, an associate with ties to the Republican Party in America, casually mentions that the Republicans are keenly interested in resolving the ongoing hostage crisis before it becomes an issue in the upcoming presidential election of 1980, Tutunchi starts thinking of ways to profit from the situation. Unfortunately for Tutunchi, his mistress, Emily, is talking to MI5, who suspects Tutunchi of being involved in international drug dealing. Meanwhile, in America, Fred Walter and Bill Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager, hire former CIA Middle East expert Sean O’Hara to keep an eye on things from their end. And with war brewing between Iran and Iraq and the election approaching, the situation may get much more complicated for everyone involved. The author, himself a former CIA operations officer with extensive experience in Iran, brings an extraordinarily detailed knowledge of the situation in Iran, as well as of Iranian politics and culture. His crisp prose grabs attention, in part through the deft use of several viewpoints. There are some pacing issues; in large passages, the action revolves around the primary characters talking over martinis. And many will guess how the crisis ends. Still, good writing, great characters, and the author’s unique insight into Iranian politics, culture and the hostage crisis itself more than make up for any slow spots.
Fascinating, detailed and absorbing.Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4827-8213-4
Page Count: 414
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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