A tale with a realistic legal backdrop that spotlights the engrossing trials of a contentious mother-and-son relationship.
Caught in a sexually compromising position with one of her Mafioso clients, a bulldog attorney must call on her long-estranged, up-and-coming lawyer son to defend her at an ethics hearing in this debut novel.
Rising in the male-dominated legal world of Atlanta in the 1970s, Carter Scales earned her moniker of the “Dragon Lady” by being a force of nature in the courtroom and a stone wall against the constant misogyny she faced while defending some of the most notorious members of organized crime. This reputation follows her and her practice into the present day, but in a moment of emotional weakness, she jeopardizes it all and is caught performing oral sex on the head of the Salucci crime family in prison. Her one hope is her son, Benjamin, who struggled under her domineering influence and his own emotional immaturity yet still became a remarkably savvy and successful defense attorney himself. His contentious upbringing and deep familiarity with his mother’s history, from her divorce to the constant sexism she faced and the death of a judge she and her son wanted as part of their family, could save her career, though Ben’s interest is in getting something from Carter he’s never had before—an apology. Despite initial impressions, Sheffield’s book (inspired by real events) is no legal thriller, though the author does call on his own extensive background with the law to give readers a firsthand understanding of the wheeling, dealing, and grappling that go on among attorneys, clients, and judges. Instead of trading in empty suspense or surprise witnesses, the novel focuses on the dynamics between mother and son, the demands the former makes for her sacrifices and how the latter internalizes them, both blaming himself for what was missed and spiting her for putting her work over his happiness. As narrator, Ben is a joy, intolerably immature but well-balanced by his self-awareness and sense of humor, though it is, at times, a little odd how specific his knowledge of some of his mother’s more intimate moments is. The interactions between Ben and Carter, particularly their fights, are the novel’s strongest moments, so plausibly navigating between the hilarious and the heartbreaking in their arguments that their eventual détente feels truly hard-won.
A tale with a realistic legal backdrop that spotlights the engrossing trials of a contentious mother-and-son relationship.Pub Date: July 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-9998366-1-0
Page Count: 394
Publisher: Michael Terence Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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