A pleasing introduction to a very interesting writer’s several “worlds.”
Retellings of familiar stories and bizarre dystopian visions, in 15 stories by the popular author better known for such SF and fantasy novels as Aegypt (1987) and Little, Big (1981).
Crowley’s lucid style and mastery of linear narrative function most effectively in a lovely adaptation of a medieval folktale about fairy siblings who cannot both survive in the human world (“The Green Child”) and in his unsparing version of the story of the seal-man (“silkie”) who takes a mortal wife (“An Earthly Woman Sits and Sings”). Other classic figures appear, intriguingly transposed, in a reimagining of Adam and Eve’s “fall” into knowledge (“The Nightingale Sings at Night”), Lord Byron’s report of an encounter between humans and a beleaguered satyr (“Missolonghi 1824”), and an anecdote about an urban writer’s unexpected meeting with Virginia Woolf, whose “immortality” ironically makes her an avatar of an increasingly rapidly disappearing past (“The Reason for the Visit”). Of the more purely speculative stories, “Novelty” wrestles with a blocked writer’s vacillations between retaining “secure” memories of his usable past and daring to stretch it imaginatively; “Gone” wryly depicts a suburban mom’s uneasy accommodation to a brave new world staffed—and alarmingly altered—by industrious extraterrestrials; and “In Blue” introduces a depressed protagonist stuck in a ruthlessly streamlined post-revolutionary future that has consigned history to oblivion. The latter story’s core idea is treated more interestingly in the superb novella “Great Work of Time,” which blends the tale of a mad inventor’s quest to enrich himself via time travel with a fantasy about African explorer Cecil Rhodes’s creation of a secret society (“The Otherhood”) dedicated to “preserve and extend the British Empire.” Even better is “Antiquities,” in which Britain’s conquest of Egypt stirs up malignant shape-shifting avengers.
A pleasing introduction to a very interesting writer’s several “worlds.”Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-380-73106-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2004
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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