Episodic, mock-religious meditation on an eternal whore, by the author of The Miraculous Day of Amalia G¢mez (1991), etc. Like the eternal soldier, this whore appears through the ages at pivotal moments of history to expiate and revisit her sins—her original sins, in fact, since she was Eve. She was Delilah; she was Mary Magdalene. She was Helen of Troy, Madame de Pompadour, Salome, and Medea. As the novel begins, she is the Countess du Muir, who flees the cathedral in which her husband is murdered to seek refuge at his chÉteau. It seems the Pope himself, in league with the countess's treacherous sister, Elena, wants to frame her for the murder, exposing her as a calculating ``whore'' rather than a loving wife. In a series of teas with a dowdy mystic, the grieving widow recounts the lurid dreams she's been having, all of them centering on great men of history who were betrayed by women. Not dreams but memories, says the mystic, and the women were but scapegoats: The label ``whore'' is a hoax perpetrated by organized religion to obscure its own perfidy. At the same time, a scurrilous account of the eternal whore circulates, allowing Rechy to add some pornography to his contrived mix; the widow counterpoints with the truth. The press gathers as the mystic and the countess turn over history, and thus the pretext of the countess's narration is to practice for her interview. She will set the record straight about the bad rap she's suffered for eons: that a sensual woman must needs also be treacherous. There are some compelling scenes, based on nothing but Rechy's imagination, between the teenagers Mary Magdalene, Judas Iscariot, and Jesus. Otherwise: an artificial, weak performance full of sexual encounters that don't ring true.
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-55970-335-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
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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