Evocative, sad, at times funny, and never completely without hope, a story that studies what it means to be alone later in...
This immersive, cerebral novel centers on J, a woman teetering on the balance between the concrete, sometimes grim responsibilities of her daily life and an equally urgent personal dilemma: should she “retire” from love and romance?
Memoirist, translator, and novelist Alison (The Sisters Antipodes, 2009, etc.) sets a surreal scene: a Miami beachfront apartment building, a “musty old Love Boat,” where the structure and many of its residents are in the process of death and decay. J lives on the 21st floor in a box-shaped flat with cork floors and mirrored walls. Her building, a large block consisting of smaller blocks, is mirrored by the building across the way, where she witnesses scenes of human connection and disconnection, innocent and otherwise. Everyone in this book is known only by their first initial or their role, such as “my mother” or “Par-T-Boy,” contributing to the sense of disconnection J and the reader experience together. In her cube, J embarks on a project similar to Alison’s own book Change Me (2014), translating sex stories by Ovid into English. As she works, she considers giving up on sex and romantic life after the end of a 10-year marriage and a tour of exes, culminating in one month spent with “Sir Gold,” the one who got away, who doesn’t want her back anymore. Her intellectual life is punctuated by obligatory dates with local suitors, an ailing mother, an incontinent cat, and a newly formed friendship with a neighbor couple. She ventures out to swim laps in the building’s hourglass-shaped pool and walk the beach, where she feeds and attempts to rescue a wounded duck. While narrating her own story, J acknowledges she’s speaking to an audience, but her stories don’t form an epic tale; rather, they are a series of short chapters, elliptical dips into and out of experiences past and present.
Evocative, sad, at times funny, and never completely without hope, a story that studies what it means to be alone later in life.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-936-78712-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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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
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