Yet these are quibbles in a novel so rich. First-timer Durkee writes with a southern accent that doesn’t smother a unique...
A tremendously energetic first novel about the childhood, adolescence, and emerging manhood of a troubled Mississippi boy in the decade after Vietnam.
Whether the ghosts are real or in his head, small-town Noel Weatherspoon is haunted, first by his father, declared MIA in Vietnam when Noel was in first grade, then by the Little League catcher who slipped into a coma after ten-year-old Noel slammed into him at home plate. Remorseful yet self-important, Noel lives according to his permanent sense of guilt. A natural outsider, he’s drawn into guilt-affirming behavior with other outsiders—beginning with his only Jewish classmate, then the minister’s rebellious daughter, and finally a fired college professor. The first third of the story is chock-full of events and characters, too many to cite here, as Durkee combines the haunting lyricism of his prologue, told from the comatose catcher’s point of view, with blatantly crude comedy that will have readers laughing out loud despite themselves (think watermelon and horny boys). With more plot turns than you’ll find in a year of daytime soaps, Durkee introduces a slew of people who are colorful yet never caricatures, from the single mother of Noel’s best friend who gets stoned with the boys, unaware that Noel has a naked snapshot of her, to Noel’s stepfather, whose resemblance to Billy Graham underscores his tragicomic relationship with Noel. Perhaps inevitably, the author does lose some steam as he goes along. Although Noel’s college experience has its charms, particularly his twisted, unconsummated affair with a married and fired professor, the moral crisis that he finally confronts seems forced, the author’s fingerprints seen too visibly all over the denouement.
Yet these are quibbles in a novel so rich. First-timer Durkee writes with a southern accent that doesn’t smother a unique voice, and his roller-coaster ride of a story leaves a reader breathless and waiting for more.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-393-04971-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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