California disc-jockey (and former rock star) Kihn brings back Beau Young of the Stone Savages from Big Rock Beat (1998) The author’s recipe is simple: take Nan and Ivan Lyons’ deliciously droll mystery, Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (1976); replace cooks with black American bluesmen. Vincent Shives, an albino guitarist as yet unfledged by playing in public, goes to New Orleans, where an ancient black zombie woman for $5,000 sells him the Mojo Hand, a mummified, severed human appendage that seems not quite dead. Beau has dropped rock ‘n’ roll to recover from a coke habit and play the blues with legendary harpist Oakland Slim. Suddenly Slim’s buddies among the giants—Red Tunney, Art Spivey, and B. Bobby Bost—are being murdered, opened up like cans of tomato soup by some sort of claw. Yes, it’s the Mojo Hand, which climbs out of its shoebox while Vincent is sleeping and goes off to murder his rivals. Divorced Beau falls in with Annie Sweeney, owner/writer of Bluesworthy magazine, and begins his own investigation of the murders, drawing on his new friendship with a fan who happens to be an assistant medical examiner in San Francisco. Meanwhile, a man claiming to be long-dead blues colossus Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil 43 years ago, tries to establish his legal right to royalties from recordings of his music by the Crawling Kingsnakes and their big-lipped leader Rick Dagger (yes, the Stones and Mick). Since that group happens to be recording demos in Sausalito, why not have “Robert Johnson” prove his identity by playing with their lead guitarist, Heath Pritchard (Keith who?), who knows Robert Johnson’s every note? If he does prove out, what will Vincent and the Mojo Hand have to say about this new zombie on the block? No question, blues players and fans will dig these chords, which reverb with Kihn’s now familiar shimmer.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-87246-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
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
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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