Despite such digressive longueurs as Miriam’s extended stay with the Essenes, and spotty character development—Miriam’s...
Mary speaks out, dispelling rumors that she’s a wimp, in Halter’s latest Bible-based historical novel (Lilah, 2006, etc.).
Young Miriam of Nazareth is thrust into activism when she hides Barabbas, leader of the resistance against tyrannical madman King Herod, in her carpenter father Joachim’s house. Later, Joachim is captured and sentenced to be crucified outside Herod’s stronghold at Tarichea. Mary enlists the help of Barabbas and his gang of street urchins from Israel’s despised underclass, the am-ha-aretz. One of these, Obadiah, becomes her platonic soul mate after he climbs up to free Joachim from the cross during a daring rescue mission. When an all-male parley, including Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus the Pharisee and Barabbas, can’t agree on what to do about Herod and his Roman backers, Mary defies convention and injects her opinion. Sent to study with Rachel, founder of a feminist enclave in Magdala, Mary learns Latin and Greek and grows even more adept at bucking male authority. She befriends Rachel’s daughter Mariamne (the future Mary Magdalene). When Barabbas and a gravely wounded Obadiah appear on Rachel’s doorstep, Miriam insists they consult Joseph of Arimathea, a famous healer. But Obadiah dies en route to the Essene community where Joseph lives. Miriam confounds this ascetic order of celibate men by staying outside the compound walls night after night, mourning Obadiah at his pauper’s grave. When her mother, Hannah, is murdered by Herod’s mercenaries, Miriam returns to Joachim, who has taken refuge with his apprentice Yossef (Joseph). After rebuffing a marriage proposal from Barabbas, Miriam announces that she is pregnant, but her avowals of virginity incite mostly shock and skepticism. Yossef sticks by her and it’s off to Bethlehem for a certain census. A faux—but convincingly worded—“Gospel of Mary” explains certain mysteries, including the Resurrection, but not the virgin birth.
Despite such digressive longueurs as Miriam’s extended stay with the Essenes, and spotty character development—Miriam’s hysteria occasionally undermines her modernity—a lively re-imagining of the New Testament.Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-307-39483-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2008
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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