A complex and challenging new novel from the author of Sent For You Yesterday (1985), Fever (1989), and other rich, provocative examinations of America's heritage of racial injustice. Wideman's narrator tells the "story" his book promises to contain to his father, who is also a writer. It's a static one, essentially a series of tableaux, with many protagonists. Among them is an 18th-century black preacher who has escaped from a "stricken city" (Philadelphia) in time of plague "to seek refuge in the peaceful environs of the countryside where I wandered preaching the word of God." The book's title refers to the African Xhosa tribe, who also figure in the narrative: Following the dictates of a false prophecy, they destroy their cattle herd believing that this will prevent their enslavement by European colonizers. Also central to the complex narrative are the mysterious appearances of a disabled young African woman (sometimes mute, sometimes blind) who represents to those who view her, variously, a teacher, a savior, an accuser, and a judge. The novel quite deliberately eschews linear plot, ranging across three centuries, circling back repeatedly to focus, from constantly shifting perspectives, on retold and transformed stories: of a racially mixed couple murdered by their neighbors; a black bishop who courageously removed his congregation from "the white people's church" in 18th-century Philadelphia; and an aristocratic white family that casts out a baby infected with the plague, bringing on its own eventual annihilation. Wideman, two-time winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, is an accomplished and powerful stylist, and the sheer formal beauty of his tense, dramatic, image-filled sentences gives his angry summa of our violent history a commanding authority. A dazzling apocalyptic meditation—and a brilliantly imagined portrayal of 18th century America—that nevertheless lacks coherence and presents a web of enigmatic symbolism so thickly woven that many willing readers simply won't know what to make of it.
Pub Date: Oct. 2, 1996
ISBN: 0-395-78590-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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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