A shimmering Fabergé egg of a novel, so hermetic and tightly knit that many readers may fall by the wayside. But those who...
Another Nabokovian puzzle shrouded in carefully maintained ambiguity, from the acclaimed author of the Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire (1999).
The book is divided into 12 “commentaries” narrated by J., a young Cuban intellectual employed by wealthy Russians Vasily and Nelly to tutor their preadolescent son Petya in their lavish home on Spain’s moneyed and prestigious Costa del Sol. They initially balk when J. explains his pedagogical strategy: to immerse his young pupil in the teeming world of In Search of Lost Time. Marcel Proust’s multivolume masterpiece, J. believes, “is a machine for thinking, the greatest compendium of instructions ever written.” He persuades Petya’s imperious parents and is permitted to proceed. Meanwhile, mounting evidence suggests that the many diamonds with which the beautiful Nelly decorates herself are counterfeit jewels that she and Vasily create and illegally market to the dangerous displeasure of Russian Mafiosi, several of whom winter in this very Spanish demi-paradise. J. surmises that a pair of Russian thugs, Kirpich and Reketa, are pursuing the family. Still, anyone who imagines himself a commentator on ancient texts and icons, as J. does, should realize that objects and especially people are not necessarily what they appear to be. As mirrors reveal other mirrors, angles and perspectives, J. is enlisted in Nelly’s delirious plot to “prove” that Vasily, a descendant of the Romanovs, is the rightful Emperor of Russia. J.’s fantasies collapse, and his imaginative complicity haunts him, while suggestive literary allusions—to H.G. Wells, Dostoevsky, Kafka and Shakespeare, as well as Nabokov and of course Proust—simultaneously explicate and deepen the mysteries.
A shimmering Fabergé egg of a novel, so hermetic and tightly knit that many readers may fall by the wayside. But those who loved the inspired legerdemain of Prieto’s debut should not miss it.Pub Date: April 8, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1879-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
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
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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