Despite the stream-of-consciousness style that leaves the reader feeling somewhat distant from the story, DeMaio pulls off a...
Debut author DeMaio sketches the mid-life crisis of a 40-year-old woman and shows that turmoil can lurk behind even the most serene of façades.
Sara Beth Riley is a stereotypical suburban mom with a financially successful and fairly decent husband, three good kids, a nice house, great friends and enviable health. But behind that mask, Sara’s soul is actually crumbling. Unlike many content to go through the motions, Sara says “no more,” and walks out on her life, her family, her kids and her husband, both literally (for a short while) and emotionally (for an extended time). DeMaio’s use of supporting characters to show the impact of Sara’s choice on others is an enlightening stroke that adds depth to her character’s journey. It also makes Sara appear whiny and unlikable at times, illustrating how unsympathetically the world can perceive those struggling with inner burdens. The author uses Sara’s self-obsessed misery as a tool to show the more interesting and powerful paths of the people close to her, including her husband, her best friend and a troubled officer in the NYPD’s mounted division. The transformations of the secondary characters make up the core of the book, and the title character sometimes seems little more than a static pawn for the stronger personalities around her. At times the author’s style of jumping between past and present, as well as switching viewpoints, makes for jarring transitions. But the moments of confusion are usually made worthwhile by the scene’s thoughtful foray into the not-so-simple emotions of those struggling to rebuild in the middle decades of their lives, especially in the shadows of loss and death.
Despite the stream-of-consciousness style that leaves the reader feeling somewhat distant from the story, DeMaio pulls off a wandering, thoughtful story that surprises with its insight and emotional impact.Pub Date: March 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-1466427501
Page Count: 336
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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