Despite the sometimes wrenching shifts in narrative point of view, Gloss (Wild Life, 2000, etc.) offers an acutely observed,...
As America commits fully to World War I, a lady horse whisperer likewise resolves to succeed.
In November 1917, the war has stripped the farming communities of Oregon nearly bare of able-bodied men, so when tall, strong 19-year-old Martha Lessen drops by George Bliss’s farm asking for work as a horse-breaker, George is inclined to listen. If he’s astonished at her gentle, non-coercive methods, he hides it—but there’s no doubting that Martha works tirelessly and uncomplainingly, and that her techniques prove highly effective, even on supposedly intractable beasts. Soon nearby farms are asking for Martha’s services, so she rides a long daily circuit, ensuring that lessons learned stay learned. And though Martha confidently handles the few remaining male farm hands, she’s less sure-footed interacting with the farm women whose loves and troubles seem a world removed. Gradually, though, the community absorbs Martha. One farmer’s a drunk; another dies horribly of cancer; still another has a sadistic streak, and his idea of horse-breaking is to brutalize the animal into submission. She attends church and goes to dances in borrowed dress and shoes. To her own astonishment—she regards herself as unmarriageable and has little interest in the subject—Martha finds herself being courted by sensitive cowpoke Henry Frazer. As the winter wears on, anti-German sentiment rises—bad news for families who have their houses torched or are blackmailed into buying Liberty Bonds to prove their loyalty—and Martha grows toward maturity and fulfillment.
Despite the sometimes wrenching shifts in narrative point of view, Gloss (Wild Life, 2000, etc.) offers an acutely observed, often lyrical portrayal that mirrors our own era and, title notwithstanding, has as much to say about people as about horses.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-618-79990-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
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
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
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