Overwrought and flimsy—but at least the coastal scenery is lovely.
Rice’s latest (Dance With Me, 2004, etc.) focuses on a family with major communication problems.
John Sullivan is a talented Irish-American sculptor who finds inspiration in extreme climates. His grandest installation yet, a huge sculpture made of tree trunks, stands on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea in a remote part of Ireland. Soon after wife Honor and their three daughters come to see the completed project, John’s hot temper and extreme nature land him in deep trouble. He’s implicated in the mysterious death of a jealous local, found on a ledge beneath the cliffs with John’s oldest daughter Regis standing by the body. Refusing to defend himself in court and drag Regis further into the case, John gets a sentence of six years in an Irish prison. The way his wife Honor sees it, he abandoned their family out of sheer stubbornness. Just a few months before Regis’s wedding, John returns home to Connecticut from prison. Can he repair the damage that his absence has done? Honor is pondering divorce, and their daughters are basket cases. With a little help from his sister (a nun), John rekindles his romance with Honor. Their flaky offspring are the ones who really need guidance and attention. Regis is marrying for all the wrong reasons. Middle daughter Agnes has delusional tendencies, and when she incurs a suspicious head injury, her family wonders if she is suicidal. The Sullivans must come to terms with what actually happened six years ago in Ireland, or the family will be destroyed. Readers looking for Rice’s standard mix of enduring love and family drama won’t be disappointed. However, they certainly won’t find anything new in this Celtic drama rife with predictable sins and one-dimensional people. (Not every character need be beautiful and brimming with passion.) The only love affair that rings true is the author’s fawning adoration of Ireland.
Overwrought and flimsy—but at least the coastal scenery is lovely.Pub Date: July 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-553-80419-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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