A hip, hilarious and intelligent novel that examines the gray areas of sexuality.
Brogan’s (A Time To Live, 1997, etc.) bi-friendly novel explores the postmodern world of sexual ambiguity through the eyes of a young, yet jaded, gay sportswriter.
Nico Gonzalez has an unbridled attraction to straight men—or rather, outwardly straight men. He believes that every male possesses some form of yearning for other men; however, he also acknowledges that “he might have picked these particular guys knowing they could take closeness only so far.” At the start of the novel, his best friend and lover Bobby Sangthong breaks up with him, admitting that his hyper-religious parents have been pressuring him to marry a woman and have children. Nico holds a grudge against Bobby for not being true to his gay self, but tries to forgive him. Luckily, and conveniently, Nico’s best friend, Brianna, introduces him to Shane, a handsome, career-oriented programmer at Microsoft. He’s clean, organized and wealthy, yet modest, and Nico feels almost unworthy in his presence, as he lives in a dirty apartment (nicknamed “Plato’s Cave”) and actively plans on quitting his day job as a sportswriter. Their blooming relationship is tested when Nico unexpectedly befriends Grady Jackson: a sports-loving, girlfriend-having, sarong-wearing hunk whose sexuality is cloudy and undefinable. Nico is sick of falling for men who ultimately leave him for women, yet he can’t help but detect their mutual attraction. Meanwhile, Brianna argues with Nico that the nature of intimacy is malleable and fluid. Throughout the novel, Brogan examines the intriguing, often confusing human tendency to confine others with labels. Nico gives the story the unique perspective of a gay man who doesn’t accept the idea of bisexuality, and the author develops his character exquisitely. Despite Nico’s desire for clear categories, he contradicts himself with his own lust for experimentation: “Tonight simply became a question of drawing on their already extensive repertoire of previously established possibilities, extensive enough so that there was also the uncertainty, which Nico loved, of what would come next.” Brogan also effectively uses the city of Seattle, giving his forward-thinking, pleasure-seeking characters an expansive environment in which to grow. Overall, this novel is highly recommended for readers interested in conversational commentary on contemporary sexuality, with an added twist of dark humor.
A hip, hilarious and intelligent novel that examines the gray areas of sexuality.Pub Date: April 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0991147007
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Equanimity Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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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