None
An exquisitely mounted, immaculately designed fable in a jeweled medieval setting that pierces to the heart of an ancient scholarly/spiritual dilemma: Should one live within a world of faith with its invisible perfections—or only in the world as it is seen and sensed, of things as they are? The author portrays the conflict with venerable theological dialectic and an inventive use of the enduring myth of the wolf-raised child. Quoting St. Augustine to the effect that ``morning knowledge is different from evening knowledge,'' the gentle scholar Benedix explains the problem to Severo, the cardinal prince of their Church-owned island: in the knowledge of angels, morning knowledge deals with ``the nature of a straight line; evening knowledge is knowing that no line in the world is really straight.'' Severo has come to the monastery for help in converting an avowed atheist, Palinor, a stranger from a far country—handsome, highly intelligent and companionable. Severo is determined to save Palinor from a heretic's death. Meanwhile, a wild creature raised by wolves is captured, and Severo sends her to a convent to be tamed—but with the stern stipulation that she hear nothing of God. Will then the denial of God-knowledge in a child of nature—proving that knowledge of God is revealed and not innate—save Palinor? While the wolf child is (outwardly, at least) ``humanized,'' the cardinal, the famous scholar, and the atheist meet in a paradisiacal setting of greenery, fountains, and colonnades to discuss philosophy and theology. But looming, gathering savagery and horror, is the Inquisition, about to bring death to one and, for others, the absence of angels. At the close, the wolf girl sees—without understanding—the start of an inevitable conquest. With timeless personalities, grounded firmly within the hot windstorms of an on-going human conundrum: a brilliantly crafted, haunting tale—the author's second novel for adults (after a mystery, The Wyndham Case, 1993).
None NonePub Date: March 28, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-68666-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
IN THE NEWS
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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