Reilly says he had to self-publish Contest “after every major publisher in Sydney rejected it.” Those editors should keep...
The Australian author of three breathlessly plotted action thrillers (Area 7, 2002, etc.) unveils what was his first novel.
You’d think a bunch of highly advanced aliens would find some other place in the galaxy to hold a gory death match than the 42nd Street New York Public Library, and that they’d pick someone other than radiologist Stephen Swain to represent the human race. A brainy, good-natured widower who quelled a violent disturbance a few weeks back (and thus gained the approval of extraterrestrial watchers), Swain finds himself teleported into the library, unwitting and unarmed, from his Long Island home, with his eight-old daughter, Holly, in his arms. There, a fussy, four-foot humanoid named Selexin spends far too many pages explaining the contest rules, which are, basically, that the last of the seven species to survive has to kill the Karandon, a big, stupid, hairy ape with claws, who has already shredded a library security guard. Oh, and Swain better not flee: the library is enclosed in a lethal electrical field and, even if Swain finds a way to disable it, a band on his wrist that he can’t remove will incinerate him if he’s outside the field for more than 15 minutes. Why 15 minutes? Why do all the creatures Swain has to fight resemble hokey Hollywood monsters from cheesy horror and science fiction shows? Why do aliens with such advanced technology use claws, knives, horns, fangs, mesmerizing antennae, or big ugly feet to kill their prey? Why does the National Security Agency send in a platoon of macho commandoes to investigate when New York’s Finest deals with illegal aliens all the time? Reilly has little concern for these and other preposterous plot holes, and, on page 89, he begins the inventive, highly contrived, breathtakingly executed mayhem that makes his thrillers such quick, mindless reads.
Reilly says he had to self-publish Contest “after every major publisher in Sydney rejected it.” Those editors should keep their jobs.Pub Date: March 10, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-28625-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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
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
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