Egypt, 1100 B.C.: a narrator without memory ("I still did not know who I was, nor how old I might be") finds himself in the Necropolis, in the tomb of young, dead nobleman Menenhetet the Second. . . and only slowly realizes that he is in fact "nothing but the poor Ka" (part of the soul) of Meni II. An unnerving, disorienting, promising beginning for this 700-page novel—but then, alas, the Ka of Meni II meets the Ka of his great-grandfather Meni I, a much-reincarnated High Priest who will be the primary narrator in the six long, lifeless sequences that follow. In "The Book of the Gods," Meni I offers a mini-history of Ra, Isis, Horus, Set, et al., seen in terms of "shit, blood-sacrifice, and fucking" (especially homosexual rape—a major preoccupation throughout the novel). In "The Book of the Child," Meni II remembers a childhood visit—with father, mother Hathfertiti, and Meni I—to Pharaoh Ramses IX, an endless evening during which Meni I tells the four-"Book" story of his previous existence in the bygone era of Ramses II: he is the Pharaoh's Charioteer and rape victim ("I was no longer myself but His, and loved Him. . . but I also knew I would never forgive him"); he's a leader in the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites (powerful war scenes), indulging in cannibalism; he then becomes "Nanny of the harem," consorting in kinky rituals with the sorceress/ courtesan Honey-Ball (but also having threesies sex with the Pharaoh and a pig); next he's courtier/lover to Nefertiri, the Pharaoh's dumped queen ("you fucker, give Me your obelisk," she murmurs); eventually, in life #2, he'll become High Priest. And, while Meni I's reminiscences go on and on, Meni II's passive father sleeps (one can hardly blame him)—but the six-year-old Meni II himself becomes increasingly aware of the sexual cracklings in the air: the lust between Ramses IX and Hathfertiti, the sexual secrets of Meni I and Hathfertiti. . . and, above all, Meni II's own simmering "desire for my Mother" (they will indeed become lovers). Did Mailer's research into Ancient Egypt reveal a cultural fixation on Oedipal incest, fellatio, anal rape, and castration anxiety? Or is this a willful projection of Freudian preoccupations onto the world of the Pharaohs? Whichever the case, the result is oddly stagnant fiction—straining to conjure up a nexus between mysticism and sex. And though there are passages of vividly exotic Egyptology, along with a few of coarsely amusing anachronism, this flatly episodic epic most often seems embalmed in its own obsessions—with little to reward the many readets who'll be drawn by the Mailer name and the media interest.
Pub Date: April 25, 1983
ISBN: 0349109702
Page Count: 709
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1983
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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