An entertaining tale of a gay writer and would-be chef in Toronto.
A romantic sequel continues the story of an African-American foodie’s misadventures in love.
Though they are no longer together, Pierre Jackson still harbors a strong attraction to his former fiance, the closeted CNN news anchor De’Andre “Dre” Harris. That’s why Pierre accepts his invitation to come to a party at Dre’s wealthy parents’ house. But later, Pierre finds out that Dre is currently dating a woman. Pierre’s work life in Toronto isn’t much better. He’s struggling to earn a living writing freelance reviews of local restaurants while sharing an apartment with his friend Zola Washington. Zola escaped an abusive relationship in Atlanta and is frustrated with the lack of soul food in Toronto. She has decided to try to open her own restaurant to fill the niche and wants Pierre, who moved to Toronto from Detroit, to be her business partner. Pierre is unsure. It sounds like a desperate step for both of them, as even Zola seems to admit: “Seriously, Pierre, you aren’t getting any younger, and neither am I. We both must do something different with our lives.” Pierre ultimately decides to help Zola out, though it means courting patronage from Dre and his parents, including agreeing to cater the anchor’s upcoming wedding to his new fiancee, Kendra Devonport. An unexpected trip to the Bahamas to attend his grandfather’s funeral—with the Caribbean-curious Zola in tow—gives Pierre the opportunity to get back to his roots and maybe find a path through the madness of his life. Bailey’s (Confused Spice, 2016) prose is warm and engaging, particularly his figurative language: “He wielded his words like a dull kitchen knife. His wife stared at him blankly but ate it up like a warm sweet potato pie. My mother smacked her lips and flicked off his hollow words like pesky ants.” Pierre, sensible but sensitive, is a relatable protagonist attempting to navigate the rapids of his 30s, caught between his pragmatism and his desire to dream big. The book more or less stands alone from the author’s previous Pierre novel—Bailey includes everything readers need to know—and it satisfies both as foodie escapism and as a messy story of love and friendship.
An entertaining tale of a gay writer and would-be chef in Toronto.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9959193-2-7
Page Count: 271
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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