Occasionally leans on royal spectacle, but this approach turns out to be quite fitting for such a lavish historical figure...
A fictional retelling of the rise to power of Nzinga, queen of the Ndonga tribe of Angola, examines her defiance of the Portuguese invaders who sought to enslave her people.
In 16th-century Angola, Portugal wages war with the Ndongo tribe, seeking fortune through the subjugation of its land and people. Upon capturing the mother, wife, and two sisters of the tribe’s ruler—the Ngola Kilijua, Mbande—the Portuguese face not a wrathful king but his half sister, the beautiful and shrewd Nzinga, sent to negotiate both her family’s release and a peace treaty. Favored in her youth by her father, the previous Ngola, Nzinga developed the keen, strategic mind of a leader through her endless curiosity and brazen eavesdropping despite being unable to ascend the throne as a woman. Freeing her family, she returns home a hero for her diplomatic maneuvering, making no concessions, and leaving only a spy network behind. When her brother dies under mysterious circumstances, it is not long before her growing popularity allows her to crown herself Ngola, defying gender norms as she leads her nation in staving off the advances of the more technologically advanced Portuguese, despite their horses, armor, and gun powder. Famously, when not offered a chair in the court of Luanda, Nzinga sat upon the backs of her own subjects, and Howard (A Teacher in West Africa, 2016, etc.) injects the novel with this same level of showmanship, from the re-creation of that scene to the bloody, vivid carnage of battle. Traveling poets and storytellers called griots impart to the younger Nzinga, as well as the reader, the history and nuanced beliefs of the Ndongo people, a culture that while at times cruel—Nzinga herself lost her own son to her brother’s fears of interrupting the line of succession—still inspires loyalty and instills the importance of such occasional brutalities to the ascending queen. Thoroughly researched, the book includes a useful list of characters, some of the author’s own notes on the text, as well as some further reference materials for those who wish to know more about this unapproachable queen.
Occasionally leans on royal spectacle, but this approach turns out to be quite fitting for such a lavish historical figure who ruled in Africa.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-939423-40-5
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Jugum Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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