An elucidating portrayal of a noted figure in European history.
In this installment of a series celebrating the lives of renowned Italians and Italian-Americans, the author draws on imagination and research to fill in the many gaps in the historical record of Italian merchant and explorer Giovanni Caboto, better known as John Cabot.
The book follows Giovanni from childhood in Genoa until his family relocates to Venice and Giovanni nudges his way into the fringes of the city’s elite and begins to travel for the family trading business. Financial ruin drives them out of the city, and Giovanni makes a living designing public works in Spain, hoping to get royal authorization to seek out routes to Asia, just like his rival Cristoforo Colombo. When the Spanish monarchs refuse him, he relocates to England, where he is able to convince Henry VII to approve his voyages, ultimately making two trips to North America and claiming land for England. Working from a scanty historical record (historians are not even sure whether Caboto survived his second voyage), Selbo (Piazza Carousel, 2017, etc.) animates the era with strong pacing and well-developed characters, including Giovanni’s brother, Piero, his most committed supporter, and his wife, Mattea, an independent-minded daughter of Venetian nobility. Some of the imagined scenes may be a bit heavy on coincidence (Giovanni and Cristoforo first meet as teenagers in a Genoa map shop, and the adult Giovanni’s first voyage to the New World is on one of Cristoforo’s ships), but the plot is so emotionally and historically satisfying that the reader is likely to forgive this. The writing is skilled, though characters are at times overly aware of their place in history (“These are instruments necessary for what I would like to call the European Age of Discovery,” Giovanni’s teacher declares). On the whole, however, the book is both an enjoyable read and a well-informed exercise in historical speculation.
An elucidating portrayal of a noted figure in European history.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-947431-16-4
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Barbera Foundation
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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BOOK REVIEW
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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
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