A young girl abandoned by her mother struggles to discover her origins in Denver's early-'70s hippie scene in a compelling coming- of-age debut. Five-year-old Sarajean Henry has a home and a father of sorts, but her life in downtown Denver in 1969 is decidedly exotic. Though she doesn't know it, the man she lives with isn't actually her father, and the woman who crashes occasionally in the purple-walled apartment downstairs is really her mother, but the hippie world she grows up in—a community of refugees from the conservative Midwest- -is conspiring to keep the truth of her origins from her. As Sarajean matures and reaches adolescence, she finds herself drifting from one funky apartment to another, searching for a mother's tenderness (though unable even to identify her yearning) in a cup of herbal tea with Lady Jane, a Joni Mitchelllike space cadet in embroidered jeans and wooden clogs; a friendship (and a part-time job) with the grandmotherly owner of the local thrift shop; poetry sessions with the elusive, stoned-out Tina Blue, who confides to Sarajean that she has ``fled the dark heart of America'' and is hiding; and increasingly risky escapades with Lalena, Sarajean's best friend, whose sexual abuse by her Vietnam- vet, drug-pushing father epitomizes the community's casual irresponsibility toward their young. Jimmy Henry, Sarajean's own burnt-out surrogate father, is too caught up in his heroin addiction and subsequent recovery to realize that Sarajean needs to know who her mother is. He clearly needs Sarajean, though, for stability in his life, and it's his imperfect love that saves the girl when she flees across America, seeking her mother and a stable identity for herself. An extraordinarily powerful first novel in which what is not said often seems infinitely more important than what is. Sarajean is impossible to forget. (Author tour)
Pub Date: March 31, 1997
ISBN: 1-56512-154-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
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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