From bestselling author Harper (The Wings of Morning, 1993, etc.) comes this period romance set on the American frontier in the early 19th century. After her husband dies of a heart attack, Kate Craig is left with only her little boy to console her. Grief is joined by a sense of betrayal and rage when she learns that her husband, a trader, had another wife, a young Indian woman who lived ``upriver'' with the Mandan tribe. Moreover, since he had neglected to tell her that he was up to his eyeballs in debt, Kate now finds herself stripped of her fine St. Louis house and all its possessions. Forced to support herself and her child, she decides to take Red Dawn, the one shabby little boat she does own, up the river to trade with the hospitable Mandan tribe. One of her passengers is Blue Wing, her husband's other wife, whom Kate has befriended and is now taking back to her people. The other is Rand MacLeod, a half-Indian appointed to act as subagent for the Mandan tribe. Kate thinks Rand is moody and volatile, but the attraction between them grows, even though it seems they are from two different worlds. But when Kate meets the Mandans and lives with them, their cause—and Rand's- -becomes dear to her heart, and she undergoes considerable risk and expense to obtain the precious smallpox serum that will save the tribe from being decimated by the deadly disease. Other dangers and obstacles abound, including an attack by bloodthirsty Sioux and a corrupt trader intent on cheating the tribes. But Kate's grit and pluck prevail; she is able to leave her past behind and find happiness with her son, Rand, now her husband, and their baby daughter. Good writing, solid research, and a strong plot make this a hearty, stick-to-your-ribs romance that is guaranteed to satisfy. (First serial to Good Housekeeping)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-525-93822-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1994
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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