This sci-fi debut thrums with creative juice.
In this sci-fi novel, a government bureaucrat learns the strange truth of his parents’ deaths.
The year is 2041, and Jack Tone works for the Federal Security Agency in Manhattan. He’s an exemplary employee, writing detailed assessments on citizens, legal residents, and noncitizens of the United States. He’s miserable, however; one day after work, he nearly walks in front of a delivery truck. When Peter Andronicus, an accountant, saves him, they agree to have some drinks. Jack lies about his sensitive job, telling his new friend that he’s a U.S. Customs inspector. In turn, he suspects that Andronicus is also lying about his profession. Two weeks later, Jack runs into him at Penn Station, and they head to The Cock and Bull for more libations. This time, Andronicus lays some strange cards on the table—including his knowledge that Jack wanted to be an archaeologist in high school. He then reveals Jack’s true position within the “Corporate-Government alliance” and asserts that “America must be re-founded anew, this time on the pure ideals of liberty and life.” He invites Jack to a meeting, in Pennsylvania, of the Friendly Neighborhood Political Discussion Group, aka Faction 9. The bureaucrat is reluctant to attend, but Andronicus says, “I have information about the circumstances of your parents’ deaths.” Jack eventually learns that 17 years ago, his geologist parents discovered a secret so unsettling that its revelation would have reshaped the fabric of human society. Ultimately, Jack must decide if he’s willing to use his FSA position to help these revolutionaries. For his debut, author Firelocke marries modern politics and the outré to hypnotic effect. In the novel’s opening salvo, he parodies America’s current obsession with surveillance and data collection—and the notion that it can only intensify. Among Andronicus’ Faction 9 colleagues is the chilly, ruthless Karin Polyvox. After she saves Jack from a genetically bastardized human called a Plutocroid, the narrative starts careening across bracingly weird landscapes. Fans of classic authors like Wells and Lovecraft will revel in Firelocke’s tight fusion of strange ideas, including divergent races of humanoid earthlings and giant insects frozen in time. Though his core subject matter is that of a citizenry perpetually distracted by pharmaceuticals and entertainment, Firelocke maintains a tongue-in-cheek atmosphere, like when two recent presidents are referred to as “the Idiot Ape of Texas” and “the Tower Ape.” He saves his darkest critiques for today’s incarceration industry. Prisoners of the Freedom Fortress have an arm amputated upon entrance to reinforce cooperation and eat a nonfood called Ploop. Events remain tense and fascinating as Faction 9’s violent goal—revolving around the megarich Gregory Randolph Reid—crashes against some unexpected emotional subversion. The author also wedges Jack between Polyvox’s fantastic origin and Andronicus’ grounded focus on the mission, which makes for a dreamy kind of madness that sweeps audiences along. There’s plenty of room for pop-culture references, too, including nods to the film Blade Runner.
This sci-fi debut thrums with creative juice.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9995682-9-3
Page Count: 482
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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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