A well-paced, entertaining novel woven of many strands that enlightens without becoming didactic.
Multiple generations of an extended African-American clan grapple with racism, unfair land laws and each other in this multifaceted family saga.
Family may never be easy to maintain, but the Needhams have more than their share of complications. More than 20 years ago, Jewell (Needham) Thompson put her son on a southbound train and moved on to an affluent life with a wealthy white husband who helps her pass as white. That son, Alonzo Rayne, now 30, also came north to Philadelphia, but travels back to South Carolina to care for the grandmother who raised him—and to help keep up the old farm that she can no longer maintain. On this latest trip, he takes his girlfriend's 7-year-old son Khalil, who has recently started to call him "Dad," and a load of questions about whether he can commit to the boy and his mother. But the tentative reconnection of mother and son—prompted by the loving girlfriend who hopes to heal Rayne's family and her own—brings up a violent and hate-filled past. That legacy, along with outdated laws that may cost the Needhams their land, form the backbone of a complex tale of realistic adults trying to forge a livable present while coming to terms with their legacies. Cary (Pride, 1999, etc.) returns to some of the themes of her earlier books: the abandonment of children, perhaps for their own good, and the ways we knit family together—with great success. Jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint, the narrative remains lively and distinctive, and if some of the bombshells are easy to predict (particularly the tragedy of Rayne's uncle), they are still affecting. While racism and its long-lasting toll are constant themes, Cary never gets preachy.
A well-paced, entertaining novel woven of many strands that enlightens without becoming didactic.Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1022-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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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