Morris’s latest is as anemic as her previous (Acts of God, 2000).
Obsessed by the accident that killed her father, a woman confides her misgivings to a famous novelist in this, Morris’s eighth work of fiction.
Andrea Geller is a painter and junior faculty member at Hartwood, a liberal arts college in upstate New York. Drifting uncertainly between two lovers (Charlie, single but unexciting, and Gil, married but passionate), Andrea doesn’t consider either relationship as important as discovering the truth about her father’s death. Simon Geller was a distinguished pediatric cardiologist on his second marriage. One foggy night he left the house on an errand, lost control of his car, and suffered a heart attack, but took two years to die. Andrea wants to know why her stepmother Elena, who supervised his medication, had let him drive off alone. And where was he going? Elena had inherited everything, and, though Andrea and brother Robby contested the will, the judge had ruled against them. For Andrea her father’s death is still an open wound. Enter Loretta Partlow, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist and Andrea’s neighbor. The two become friendly. Andrea is hoping the novelist will use her version of events (deliberate overmedication to cause a death) in a story that will scare the daylights out of her stepmother, a big Partlow fan. Whoa! Didn’t Andrea know never to trust a writer, especially a “gorgon” like Loretta with her “ferret eyes”? Couldn’t she have listened to her own “small voice” telling her to desist? Regardless, Andrea confides in her neighbor, though initially concealing her own difficulties with her father. But Loretta will root those out and use them to devastating effect in the novel (which gets a rave from Kirkus). But before we reach that all too predictable climax, there’s much genteel chitchat between the spider and the fly, all quite boring. Evidently, Partlow is one of those writers who saves her dazzle for the printed word.
Morris’s latest is as anemic as her previous (Acts of God, 2000).Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-32792-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
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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