Canadian Humphreys debuts with the story of two women pilots who try, in August 1933, to break a record by staying aloft for 25 days—in a novel with plenty of period interest but less depth—or height—of psychology and character than could be wished. Famous Grace O—Gorman, known as —Air Ace Grace,— sets out to break the in-air record now held by her over-the-hill husband Jack—who’s not happy to see his wife trying to grab the last record he—ll ever set. But Grace pushes ahead, and, when her intended copilot breaks her wrist, takes on the younger and less-experienced Willa Briggs (Grace is 33, Willa 23).Up they go in a Moth DH60T, a one-engine biplane with wire struts and fabric skin, to begin 25 days of 10-minute circles over the neighborhoods, docks, and waters of Toronto. Once they—re up, Humphreys offers much that’s of considerable interest—how the women refuel in the air, get food (both from a plane flown by the not-quite-to-be-trusted Jack), how they stay clean, go to the bathroom, communicate, keep from falling asleep. But there’s unquestionably a sameness about things—and the book turns to one complication and another for its density: on the ground is 12-year-old Maddy Stewart, whose infatuation for the famous flier is almost boundless—even to the point of her imagining Grace to be her real mother, while her actual parents(Jewish mother a fortuneteller, nostalgic Scots father the operator of a merry- go-round)make their way through the homely, money-pinched days of a Depression August—and feel the wrath of early Nazis, members of —the Swastika Club,— who maraud when it suits them—as it does after Maddy’s prize-fighting uncle, Simon Kahane, wins over a boxer who’s German. Everything about the airplane—with its 40-gallon gas tank and top speed of 80 mph—is marvelously done, as are the locales of long-ago Toronto, but the tales and characters that keep the rest going just don—t hold their altitude, declining toward the tones of a YA.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5957-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
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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