Steeped in Arabic culture and the Muslim faith, as well as sharply observant of immigrants’ intricate relationships to their...
Hassib’s sensitive, finely wrought debut probes the fault lines revealed in an Egyptian-American family after their eldest son kills his ex-girlfriend and himself.
Because the Al-Menshawys are Muslim immigrants to a small New Jersey town, they not only endure jaundiced scrutiny about where they went wrong with Hosaam, but ugly Internet shaming and whispers conflating a troubled teen’s actions with international terrorism. Hassib’s treatment of thoughtless prejudice is quietly scathing, but her real interest is how family members react to it. Mother Nagla is paralyzed by grief and guilt; almost a year after the murder-suicide, she is still relying on her mother, Ehsan, to run the house while she broods in her dead son’s attic room. She's appalled when her husband, Samir, a local doctor, decides that a memorial service for the girl Hosaam killed, daughter of their next-door neighbors, provides the perfect opportunity to rejoin the community. The novel takes place over the five days leading up to the service, but the characters’ memories range from the family’s arrival in 1985 through the fissures created by Hosaam’s act. Daughter Fatima is becoming more pious, which strikes her brother Khaled as providing one more reason for people to ostracize them. He feels his brother’s crime is still controlling the whole family’s behavior and thrashes around for ways to break free. Without minimizing the older generation’s faults—Samir is overbearing, Nagla passive-aggressive, Ehsan interfering and manipulative—Hassib makes palpable the bonds of love and loyalty that bind them and the children together in a situation that would test any family to its limits. The climax at the memorial service is as wrenching, awkward, and inconclusive as it would be in real life; an epilogue affirms that people survive even the most horrific traumas.
Steeped in Arabic culture and the Muslim faith, as well as sharply observant of immigrants’ intricate relationships to their adopted homelands, this exciting novel announces the arrival of a psychologically and socially astute new writer.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42813-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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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