Maillard's first novel (after Hazard Zones, 1996, etc.), reissued in a new edition (with an afterword by the author) exactly 20 years after its first unveiling in Canada. Anyone who knows Maillard only from the intricacies of his recent work—especially his current work-in-progress, the Raysburg Trilogy—is in for a big surprise. This debut effort is a '60s fantasy that would have given Pynchon heartburn and kept Philip Roth awake at night. Leslie and Alan are the center of attention, and both have some real problems. For one thing, they are, quite literally, the wrong sex: Alan is a hairdresser and Leslie is a professional swimmer, and each is convinced that the absence or presence of a Y chromosome is what makes life worth living. Although genetics can't save the day, magic realism does, and the concept of gender becomes at first fluid, then meaningless, then finally redemptive in some way that can't be and probably doesn't need to be explained too coherently. There's a lot of mirror imagery involved, and Leslie and Alan find that their shortcomings and needs (Leslie has two brothers and no mother, for example, while Alan is fatherless and burdened with sisters) complement one another perfectly, albeit not in any traditional matrimonial fashion. Meanwhile, the other characters, though just as bizarre, breeze in and out of the narrative like supporting actors in a drawing-room comedy, calling little attention to themselves. An elderly woman named Mildred serves as an excuse to work the symbolism of the Tarot deck into the plot, and there is a general obsession with esoterica throughout, contributing to the impression that this is largely a tale fashioned more from atmosphere and tone than plot. Long established as a cult classic, but only for somewhat rarefied tastes. One of the best gender-bending novels now in print.
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-00-648143-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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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