An intelligently constructed and exciting peek into the distant past.
In this historical thriller, three Americans find themselves transported to ancient Egypt and thrust into the political intrigue of the day.
Tim Hope is an American tourist trekking through Egypt forlornly, anguished over the death of his fiancee. Two Americans he’s befriended wander off to explore the Tomb of Kanakht and mysteriously disappear. Concerned for their safety, Tim searches for the couple, Brian Aldwin and Diane Maclaine, but instead unwittingly steps through some sort of portal and travels back in time 5,000 years to an Egypt before the pyramids and the age of Moses. Tim discovers that Brian and Diane stumbled into the portal as well, and all three are suspected by some to be gods, a perception reinforced by heroic deeds performed by Brian and Tim. Problematically, the world they now inhabit, Kemet or The Two Lands, is rife with intramural conflict. After suffering seven years of a devastating famine, King Djoser’s reign is threatened by secret rivals, including those close to him who claim loyalty. Further, Tim’s and Brian’s lives are menaced by political forces that fear their popularity with the people, the consequence of feats of bravery and compassion. Tim, adopting the name and role of a famous architect and adviser to the king, Imhotep, risks his life to properly direct the course of history. Meanwhile, all three Americans are drawn to this unfamiliar way of life and have to decide if they wish to remain indefinitely or—if they can figure out how—return to the future. This is the first installment of a four-part series by Dubs (Vagabond Retirement, 2017, etc.). While the undergirding premise of the plot is wildly fantastical, the author has a peculiar talent for rendering the implausible in credible terms. In addition, the depiction of ancient Egypt is masterfully executed, both authentic and accessible, with the narrative including Tim’s descriptions of the landscape (“He saw in the distance the green of the Nile’s valley, richer and darker and fuller than he remembered it. And along the river, rising from its banks he saw a city of mud brick homes surrounded by a thick white wall: The long-dead city that Tim knew as Memphis”). But the real draw of the book is its characters, especially Tim, drawn in lushly substantive terms.
An intelligently constructed and exciting peek into the distant past.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5190-7028-9
Page Count: 444
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 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
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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