Although the pace can be as slow as a humid bayou afternoon, the conflicts eventually ignite, leading to a cathartic close.
A debut novel about an African-American woman who struggles to salvage the Louisiana sugar cane farm she inherited from her father.
Recently widowed, Charlotte “Charley” Bordelon feels compelled to take advantage of an odd inheritance from her father, Ernest. Unbeknownst to his family, Ernest had sold off his valuable California real estate holdings to purchase a failing sugar cane spread in his Louisiana birthplace. Now, Charley has no choice but to farm the land: Her father’s trust prevents a sale. Going into meticulous and occasionally numbing detail, Baszile describes how Charley manages to find seasoned advisers to educate her on the mysteries of growing cane and how, with very little equipment, scant capital and much sweat over one steamy summer, the farm is gradually reclaimed from utter desuetude. But obstacles mount: Two local white corporate sugar moguls sling racial slurs and veiled threats. (As an African-American and a woman, Charley is a minority of one among the county’s sugar cultivators.) A hurricane sets back months of arduous weeding and planting. A white colleague is proving dangerously attractive, until he makes a racially insensitive remark. But Charley’s main hurdles are closer to home. Her grandmother, Miss Honey, with whom she and daughter Micah are living, can be irascible and stubborn; her favorite aunt, antagonized by Miss Honey, stays away, but Charley’s chief nemesis is her older half brother Ralph Angel, also widowed. Resentful about being cut out of Ernest’s will (presumably since he squandered his father’s money on a drug habit), he has shown up, with his son Blue in tow, to pressure Charley to share her marginally profitable legacy. More detail on past traumas, for example, the profound depression that led Charley to neglect her daughter and the drug addiction that resulted in the death of Ralph Angel’s wife, would have deepened readers’ understanding of these characters’ present behavior.
Although the pace can be as slow as a humid bayou afternoon, the conflicts eventually ignite, leading to a cathartic close.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-02613-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
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
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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