A slave seizes her chance to be free, taking two of her three children with her, and finds that freedom for an African-American woman in the 1850's is not without trials and temptations—in this smooth and sincere, yet overly placid, fictional debut from memoirist Cary (Black Ice, 1991). When Virginia Pryor's master takes her along to warm his bed as he takes up the post of ambassador to Nicaragua, she wastes no time in making her move. During a short stop in Philadelphia she contacts the local Vigilance Committee and with their aid boldly escapes in broad daylight—an event marred only by her knowledge that she leaves her favorite boy still in bondage in Virginia. Changing her name to Mercer Gray, she goes into hiding among the Quick family, a prosperous if contentious Philadelphia clan dominated by patriarch Manny, greedy and bilious though weakened by a stroke. Mercer starts a new life with her children, but her case gains notoriety when her ex-owner brings charges against all who took part in her flight, especially a prominent white abolitionist, who is jailed before being brought to court. In response, Mercer does a lecture tour of New England to stir public sentiment in her favor, proving herself an inspired speaker. Not even her oratorical skills, however, can save her from a pro-slavery mob at her last stop in Pennsylvania, where she has to be rescued by Tyree, the smitten but ill-married Quick family scion, who brings her back to Philadelphia for a night of single, wishful passion. Mercer and her children then head north to Canada, but Tyree, head of the family after Manny dies, sends with them a measure of his love: the remains of the Quick fortune, just enough to purchase Mercer's son's freedom. The history here has depth, but characters for the most part don't, and dramatic touches are rarely potent enough to give pause. Well-intentioned, then, if not noteworthy.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-42106-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
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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