The domestic harmony of an eccentric Midwest family is threatened in this enchanting, at times unsettling, seventh novel from Strong (An Untold Tale, 1993, etc.). Lincoln and Izzy, tender sweethearts since age 11, are now the devoted parents of three odd, lovable boys who have dedicated their young lives to excavating a tunnel in their basement. The oddness seems inherited, for Linc and Izzy are the very definition of quixotic misfits. Though both are from affluent families, they eschew any trace of their privileged, traditional background: They putter around in an old jalopy, forbid religion in their slightly shabby home, tinker halfheartedly at business (Linc has turned a childhood passion for cartography into an old-maps store; Izzy owns a junk-shop), and are splendidly unadventurous, preferring the safety of a world atlas to actual travel. And though they've been monogamous since grade school, they're still unmarried. This hardly seems the stuff of a deviant lifestyle, but Strong effectively creates an oppressive, bunker-like environment for the family. The basement tunnel, which represents so much more than the boys' idiosyncratic amusement, becomes a further retreat from a world they all fear, a safety zone from civilization. The pleasantly meandering plot accelerates when the sanctuary of their home is endangered: A school psychologist takes a suspicious interest in the middle boy, Malachi. He and his brothers, Obadiah and Zephaniah, seem harmlessly secretive and precocious, but after a car is set afire, stop-signs defaced, and random acts of vandalism pop up at school, the psychologist begins to suspect the worst of those quiet, eerily obedient boys. When tragedy inevitably hits, the family experiences the ultimate test of their devotion to one another—and their diminishing ability to keep the world at bay. Endearing characters produce a fascinating portrait of American family life, viewed through the quirky perspective of the author.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-944072-55-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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