Henry and Rock’s witty, gritty, occasionally graphic sequel to Two Gentlemen From Altona (2014) forces a buttoned-down G-man...
A federal agent and a man on the lam re-enact Shakespeare when they try to expose a major con job.
When Henry Page flees Indianapolis FBI agent Ryan “Mac” McGuinness, it’s not the first time he’s run out on the agent—or on anyone else in his life. But he’s more regretful than usual, and not just because Mac was shot while protecting Henry at their hideout in Mac’s family’s cabin. Although they were on the verge of consummating an undeniable passion, Henry convinces himself it would have been one of the biggest mistakes of a life already full of wrong turns, bad decisions and hard luck. He’s a thief and Mac’s the law, and though Henry was a key witness in an upcoming trial, it’s back to his life of crime, mostly because his twin sister, Viola, needs him. It’s also time for him to return to being Sebastian Hanes, as his late, boozy, failed actress of a mother named him. Henry feels responsible for Viola and the accident that left her with the mind of a child. She even fears the people at the expensive care center that demands exorbitant monthly fees—and constant scams by Henry. The suspicious death of an elderly resident of the center goads Henry into stashing Viola in a more-or-less safe place and dressing up to take her place and expose what he’s sure is a big fraud. Then Mac, who’s in the doghouse for letting his witness get away, gets pulled into the sting. Although he’s never considered himself remotely straight, he finds that Henry/Sebastian’s role as Viola adds a whole new tantalizing layer of complexity—and bids him put his career and his life on the line to help the man he loves and save sweet, vulnerable Viola.
Henry and Rock’s witty, gritty, occasionally graphic sequel to Two Gentlemen From Altona (2014) forces a buttoned-down G-man to face 50 shades of ambiguity, not only of his endearing co-hero, but also of the odd couple’s future together.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62649-222-6
Page Count: 205
Publisher: Riptide
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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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