Thoroughly researched, masterfully embroidered, and enjoyable to read.
The politics, society, and culture of Renaissance Florence are vividly reanimated in Marmorstein’s historical novel debut based on the life of Niccolò Machiavelli.
There is little that the young Niccolò adores more than escaping his family home and threading his way through the streets of Florence to watch old men play cards in a seedy osteria. Here, drawing on a “premeditated charm offensive” inherited from his mother, he casually triggers animated debate among the players as a way of gleaning information about Florentine politics. This delightful scene is an indicator of what Niccolò will become: a political realist with a keen understanding of the human condition. The novel flits elegantly throughout Niccolò’s life—his ascension through the ranks to a position in the Second Chancery; various diplomatic missions on behalf of the republic and his role in deploying a citizen-staffed army in the war against Pisa; later years after the second Medici restoration when he was arrested and tortured for conspiracy; and a period of exile in rural Tuscany, where he began to write his great political treatises. A number of the titles from the Mentoris Project (“a series of novels and biographies about the lives of great Italians and Italian-Americans”) adopt a wearingly generic approach, making Marmorstein’s narrative deviation from conventional linear chronology refreshing. Marmorstein also succeeds in bringing Florentine society to life, particularly with regard to feasting, offering sumptuous descriptions of the local cuisine. Niccolò indulges in “a hefty portion of gran bollito misto, a hearty stew made with seven different cuts of boiled beef and veal, and seven more supplementary varieties of meat including capon, broiler chicken, and beef tongue.” Marmorstein’s descriptive eye also falls on the city’s art and architecture, taking in the “three-dimensional reality” of Masaccio’s fresco and Brunelleschi’s “massive cupola atop the Duomo.” Sadly, he chooses not to fully elaborate on Machiavelli’s penchant for “late-night escapades,” which may have proven entertaining. Still, Marmorstein skillfully weaves a spellbinding tale of the making of a political luminary set against the vibrant backdrop of Renaissance Florence.
Thoroughly researched, masterfully embroidered, and enjoyable to read.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-947431-17-1
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Barbera Foundation
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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