Red Phoenix author Bond, who also collaborated with Tom Clancy on Red Storm Rising, takes his formidable war-game skills to South Africa, where he pits fascist Boers against Cuban communists. Yanks are, once again, policemen on the world beat. Armchair warriors suffering from post-Saddam letdown, as well as ground-war fans disappointed by the walkover in Iraq, should find considerable satisfaction in this lengthy (729-page), detail-rich treatment of a multifront war that flares up when ultra reactionary South African politicians send all their moderate governmental colleagues off on a luxury train knowing that the train is about to be blown up by black radicals. With the reformers out of the way, the fascists seize power, undo racial and political reform, and send their army off to reclaim the one-time colony of Namibia. The surprise blitzkrieg makes a spectacular start—and then promptly runs into unexpected and father fierce opposition from the Cuban forces still left in neighboring Angola. Castro has got on the phone and sold a backsliding Soviet Union on the idea of an aggressive combination of Cuban know-how and Soviet hardware that will demonstrate to the world the glory of renascent Leninism. In the best Schwarzkopfian fashion, the Cubans fly and ship a major expeditionary force to Africa and roll out a tricky three-prong counterattack against the beastly Boers. When the panicky South Africans nuke one of the prongs, it's time for the US to step in and sort things out. Observing much of the action but unable to capitalize on the opportunity is an American telejournalist who is out of favor with his network—but much prized by the pretty daughter of one of the nastiest of the fascist cabinet ministers. Not all the Boers are bad, by the way. Many, many battles and much, much war with not too much mushy stuff. The political doings that set the war machinery running are rather broad-brush and suffer in comparison to the well-done battle scenes but, still, it's likely to sell oodles.
Pub Date: June 3, 1991
ISBN: 0-446-51566-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991
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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