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WHAT GOD WANTS

A German native and Australian author evokes the rich texture of modern-day Jewish-Australian life in these 16 engagingly down- to-earth tales—first published in Australia, where they won the 1992 National Steel Award, and Brett's first collection to be published here. In ``Moishe Zimmerman's Wife,'' 38-year-old Ruthie Brot succumbs to decades of sexual frustration by having an affair with Abe Lipshitz, a married man passed along by a fellow aerobics student. Not far down the road, in ``Something Shocking,'' adultery works a more evil magic on one of Ruthie's sisters-in-law, Susan Silver, who reacts to her own husband's extramarital affair by painting ``My husband is schtooping a shikse'' across the front of their house. Other members of Ruthie's tightknit Melbourne circle have their own, equally all-encompassing stories, most highlighting the tension between the Jewish past and present and each getting fair exposure here. These include, in ``Half-There,'' the obsession of Ruthie's other sister-in-law, Golda Goldenfein, with her experience as the daughter of concentration camp survivors; in ``What God Wants,'' Ruthie's father's announcement that his much younger Filipino wife is going to have a child; and, in ``Moving Meals,'' Abe's wife's frantic efforts to lose herself in volunteer work until her husband's love affair has run its course. As the months pass, few here are ever actually abandoned, though many temporarily stray, while gossip is energetically circulated via telephone calls, lunches, and the all-important weekly women's gin rummy game. Just when the tales of bed-hopping and scandal- mongering begin to wear on the soul, one of the more thoughtful protagonists, mildly neurotic Susan Cohen, flies off to New York with her family, where her sudden solitude allows for welcome depth and texture after the chattier Melbourne stories. Brett's abrupt, unadorned style can be off-putting, but, as with many of her characters, one grows fond in the end. Sketches throughout by David Rankin, the author's husband.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993

ISBN: 1-55972-193-6

Page Count: 264

Publisher: Birch Lane Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993

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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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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

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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