A sensitive study of a woman choreographing her own recovery.
The art of falling isn’t hard to master, Penelope Sparrow discovers, when she wakes up in the hospital after a 14-story plunge that ended with her body colliding with Marty Kandelbaum’s car.
Remembering the fall is too dangerous. Remembering means facing the loss of Dmitri, the loss of dancing. Remembering means facing that she may have tried to commit suicide. Kandelbaum’s arrival is the first obstacle in Penny’s path toward self-wallowing. Determined to protect her from further harm, Kandelbaum brings fasnachts from his bakery, hoping food may begin the process of healing. A lifetime of being criticized for not having the stereotypical dancer’s body, however, has left Penny vigilant about every morsel that passes her lips. She doesn’t have an eating disorder, she tells herself; she simply must be careful. Her roommate at the hospital, Angela, has no such qualms. Battling cystic fibrosis, Angela embraces every pleasure life allows her. Dance critic Margaret MacArthur arrives soon after Marty. Unbeknownst to Penny, MacArthur has followed her career, and now she is certainly interested in the accident, but she is clearly also interested in something more. No matter how hard Penny tries not to recall or discuss why she fell, everything reminds her of Dmitri—their love, their partnership at Dance DeLaval, her joy in dancing his choreography—yet at the edges of her memory she sees the shadows of his rejection. While her mother and friends try to buffer Penny’s recovery, it is MacArthur’s blunt persistence that forces her to confront the damage exacted on her body and soul well before the fall. To see the truth, Penny will have to recognize the lies and rough condemnation of the dance world. Craft’s debut novel lovingly traces the aesthetics of movement and gently explores the shattering pain of despair.
A sensitive study of a woman choreographing her own recovery.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8519-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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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