Of interest to fans who have followed the story through the first two books, but a bumpy ride without that background.
What are you going to do after vanquishing the virals? Why, properly inoculated, refound civilization, of course.
Marilynne Robinson isn’t the only writer to situate a woman named Lila in the green groves of Iowa. Nope: Cronin (The Twelve, 2012, etc.) does so too, his Lila a warden to damaged young Kate, whose biblically named mom, Sara, has been shunted off into captivity by the Redeyes, unpleasant people made that way by genetic tinkering via the virals—they being, readers of Cronin’s predecessor volumes will recall, supersoldiers gone awry thanks to inevitable screw-ups on the parts of the mad scientists at Monsanto, or wherever mad scientists find work in these fraught times. Leave it to Amy, Alicia of Blades, Peter the martyred rock on which the future is founded (“Blood was dripping from his hair, flowing down the creases of his face”), and all the other good guys to hack and slash their ways across the landscape to the promised land of Ottumwa, or wherever it is that good guys make their ways to in the very bad near future. Cronin writes with intelligence and verve, and he serves up a good imitation of Sergio Leone: “Of Amy, the Girl from Nowhere,” he writes in a denouement, “there is no mention. Perhaps we shall never learn who she was, if she existed at all.” That there’s anyone to worry about literary archaeology 1,000 years after events means that humankind survived, so yea, but only after much gore and heroic talk befitting an apocalyptic yarn. Some of the story seems castoff Walter Miller, whose Canticle for Leibowitz imagines religious belief of the future as a reflection of oddball events in the distant past—our own time, that is. And overall, there’s a kind of slow-hissing-of-air-out-of-a-balloon feel to the whole enterprise, as if this trilogy might have better been served up as a twin set.
Of interest to fans who have followed the story through the first two books, but a bumpy ride without that background.Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-50500-2
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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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