Memories are shared and friendships strengthened in a story that suffers from trying to be a history of both Kenya and the...
In her second novel to be published in the Women Writing Africa series (see above), Kenyan writer Macgoye spins an intermittently moving, if often didactic, tale.
Here, seven elderly women recall their lives during a period of great change. All seven, members of different tribes and faiths, live in the Refuge, a church-run shelter for the impoverished old and ailing. Like a chorus, their individual voices join to carry a common refrain—a plaint about their present condition—and then separate to resume their own stories, which in turn are interrupted by the others. All have had hard lives, and all have been affected by such political events in Kenya as the Mau Mau revolt against the British, independence, and the short-lived revolution of the 1960s. Bessie lives in the past now as she mourns her only son, a deserter who was seized by soldiers during the military revolt and shot dead in front of her. Light-skinned Mama Chungu recalls how she became the servant, then the mistress, of a white man. Nekesa, a former prostitute, relates how she lost the only surviving member of her family, a brother who had been a soldier in WWII but afterward turned to drink. The ailing Rahel is a soldier’s widow; Priscilla once worked for a white woman whose family was killed by the Mau Mau in Priscilla’s presence; and Sophia, a Moslem, accidentally caused a fire that killed members of her own family. The most interesting and vivid personality is Wairimu, who was determined to make her own way after she was seduced: she left home, worked at various jobs, and became involved in politics as she organized her fellow workers and protested continuing British rule.
Memories are shared and friendships strengthened in a story that suffers from trying to be a history of both Kenya and the old women.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-55861-254-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Feminist Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
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
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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