Finding myself filled with an overmastering wish to find out what happened after Fanny married Edmund, and when Susan came to live at Mansfield," Aiken offers a smooth sequel to Jane Austen's 1814 Mansfield Park—with steady charm and humor, but with tidy sentimentality taking the place of Austen's more rigorous exploration of character. It's some five years after the wedding of Edmund to cousin Fanny; Edmund's father, Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park, has died while on business in the West Indies; so Fanny and Edmund, with a baby son, set off to settle family matters in Antigua—leaving indolent, self-involved Lady Bertram to be looked after by Edmund's hearty brother Tom (the new Sir Thomas) and by Fanny's 18-year-old sister Susan, who has been Lady B.'s live-in companion since coming to Mansfield Park at age 1.4. (Fanny and Susan are poor relations from a shabby naval household in Portsmouth.) From the start, then, it seems as if brusque Tom and saucy Susan are headed for another cousinly romance—especially since they're constantly bickering. Before the final confessions of devotion, however, there'll be an array of Austen-ish red herrings: Tom's insufferable sister Julia, a meddling snob living nearby, is intent on pairing Tom off with her equally snooty sister-in-law; Tom himself, a huntsman who's far from eager to marry at 30, plans eventually to ask for the hand of sweet, pretty Miss Harley (another neighbor); Susan finds a soulmate in a gentle visiting clergyman. Then, arriving suddenly from the pages of Mansfield Park, the notorious Crawfords reappear on the scene: vivacious Mary (once courted by Edmund) is now a frail, courageous refugee from a disastrous marriage, seriously ill; her brother Henry (once the dishonorable suitor of Fanny) now seems to be a changed man; they take up residence in the White House, a Mansfield Park cottage with happy memories for the dying Mary, who is soon being doted upon by fine Susan. But, though a series of events—a ruined picnic, Tom's fall from a horse, Miss Harley's engagement—brings both Tom and Susan close to the newly noble Crawfords, the cousins will end up blissfully together. . . after a teary deathbed scene (more Dickens than Austen) and the usual misunderstandings. Throughout, in fact, Aiken's sense and sensibility are more marshmallowy than Austen's—softening Lady B.'s selfishness, redeeming the Crawfords, transforming shallow Tom into a fit mate for Susan with implausible ease. But, while the more hard-headed Austen fans will probably prefer Jane Gillespie's 1983 Ladysmead (all about what happened to horrid Maria Bertram, an offstage player here), other Mansfield Parkers will find this an endearing, cozily amusing follow-up.
Pub Date: March 1, 1985
ISBN: 0575400242
Page Count: 193
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1985
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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