Noted Israeli writer Shalev (The Blue Mountain, 1991) takes his time getting nowhere in particular as he tries to put a contemporary spin on the legendary biblical story of a lost inheritance and sibling rivalry. Set in Israel, the story is narrated by Esau, who fled to America when his beloved Leah was wooed and won by twin brother Jacob. Now in his late 50s, Esau is back home visiting his dying father, Abraham Levy, a descendant of illustrious sages but a baker by trade, who had fallen in love and married the splendid red- haired Sarah, daughter of Russian peasant converts who had immigrated to Israel early in the century. Humiliated by the loan her family made after his business was destroyed by an earthquake in 1927, Abraham soon, to Sarah's great sorrow, ignored her. Esau recalls his parents' courtship, his village childhood, his rivalry with Jacob, and the events that led to his flight. He also includes stories of Jacob, who stayed behind with Leah and still works in the bakery. In America, Esau became a food writer, but he never forgot his deep love for Leah or for his mother, though Sarah cursed him when he left home, telling him that ``you won't have family of your own... You won't have wife of your own... You won't have child of your own.'' Which all came to pass. The family history doesn't make the impact it should: Jacob's son is killed in Israel's War of Independence, and Leah, overwhelmed by grief, sleeps the rest of her life away. Though she bears another son, conception and birth do not interrupt her slumber. Nothing is resolved despite pretentious hints, fleshed out by tiresome bits of magic realism (an old aunt has miraculous suckling powers) that promise more. For all its bravado and braggadocio, this novel never quite goes mano a mano with its subject. Arm wrestling without the table.
Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-019040-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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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