Moments of real vision, pathos and poetry, but never entirely convincing.
Cleverly conceived but sketchy first novel revisits John, Paul, George, and Ringo in an alternate 1987.
In this world, the Beatles broke up in 1962, when John Lennon walked out of Abbey Road Studios over management's decision to release treacle instead of honest rock-and-roll. George Harrison and Ringo Starr followed him back to Liverpool, but Paul McCartney followed his crowd-pleasing, bottom-line instinct (and Brian Epstein) to America. Without the Beatles, rock withered and the ’60s never became The Sixties. When we catch up with them, George is a Jesuit priest, teetering in and out of madness, John is an embittered crank on the dole tortured by visions of what might have been, and henpecked husband Ringo is his amusing, level-headed friend, rescuing Lennon from scrapes as they cadge drinks at the pubs, occasionally sitting in on gigs with other Mersey Beat has-beens like Gerry and the Pacemakers. McCartney, now Paul Montana, is a Vegas crooner, thrice-divorced (Nancy Sinatra was first), an embarrassing cross between Wayne Newton and Sammy Davis Jr. In crisis over the cancellation of his TV series, Paul decides to reunite the Beatles and recapture the flame of youth during his upcoming trip to perform for Queen Di. The novel plays out over one day in a Britain on the brink of being taken over by the far-right National Front; Julian Lennon is one of its rising stars. The now middle-aged boys drink and fight, perform and bond, struggle with the past, and finally accept their lots. Kirwan, leader of the Celtic band Black 47, first spun his fantasy as a play, and it shows. The characters are amalgams of identifying tics that would work better as stage business, and the larger political story playing out in the background feels like caulking slapped onto the joints between acts.
Moments of real vision, pathos and poetry, but never entirely convincing.Pub Date: June 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-56025-497-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
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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