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THE BIG SHUFFLE

Pedersen is not at her best in this dull chronicle of family life.

Third installment in the Hallie Palmer series (Heart’s Desire, 2005, etc.) offers more somber subject matter: the death of a parent.

Nearly 19 and studying graphic design at the Cleveland Art Institute, Hallie is summoned from a fraternity party (in this world, art students apparently hang out with jocks and frat boys) by news that her 39-year-old father has suffered a fatal heart attack and her mother is in shock and sedated. Returning home to her nine siblings, Hallie soon realizes that she’ll be bearing the brunt of child-care duties. Older brother Eric must return to college or he’ll lose his scholarship, younger sister Louise has run away to live with her boyfriend at M.I.T., and Mom has been moved to a psychiatric hospital. So Hallie drops out of school and begins as best as she can to raise seven kids on the Palmers’s scant savings. Old friends lend a hand: Bernard Stockton and his boyfriend Gil offer the occasional gourmet meal and showtune-inspired pep talk; old poker buddies Officer Rich and bookie Cappy keep a watchful eye; and Uncle Lenny, a salty sailor the children adore, puts order and laughter back into the grieving household. Finally, Pastor Costello takes over and gives Hallie a much-needed break to work on her deteriorating love life. The two previous books were set among the Stocktons, rich eccentrics with whom Hallie stayed while sorting out her home life. Relegating this wacky clan to the background while Hallie’s large family takes center stage works to this story’s disadvantage. The author devotes many pages to describing the utter chaos created by a large family, but fails to provide the amusing details and memorable characters that would keep all those chores from becoming a chore to read about.

Pedersen is not at her best in this dull chronicle of family life.

Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-47956-4

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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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

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MAGIC HOUR

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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