An amusing, if drawn-out, satire of suburban life.
A modern-day twist on Flaubert’s Madame Bovary sets the story in small-town America.
Keech (A Hundred Veils, 2015) takes on a literary classic in this novel, which follows the romantic and social trials and tribulations of Emma Bovant and her husband, Charles. Emma is a suburban homemaker with professional aspirations; Charles is a caricature of the 21st-century social justice warrior, a tutor/social worker who struggles to make rent while insisting on buying organic food. Financial tensions between the two are simmering when Charles finds a new career goal and a potential sponsor. He decides to become a life coach to a wealthy local woman, Bea Doggit, who pays him $150 an hour for his services. Emma quickly becomes jealous of the relationship, professional or otherwise, developing between her husband and Bea; the first third of the book is mostly an account of romantic envy. Emma eventually realizes, however, that something larger is at play in her sphere. Bea, a realtor, is collaborating with a local pastor to push a major real estate deal through the small town. But for their plan to succeed, they must convince Andre Smyth, Charles’ friend from college, to sell his land along the river. Andre is the opposite of the local culture. Whereas Bea is a Bible-thumping, community-spirited denizen of the modern world, Andre is gay, Bohemian, and a self-avowed intellectual. As the reader realizes that Bea is manipulating Charles to exploit his friendship with Andre, Emma develops a sexual attraction to a man she can never have. Keech’s book never approaches the heights of Flaubert’s landmark novel, but it does cultivate a compelling sense of drama, especially when it focuses on the real estate plotline (At one point, Bea asks Charles for help with Andre: “We just think you might be the only one who can convince him to accept a fantastic price for his property”). Emma’s jealousy toward Bea, on the other hand, feels disproportionate early on, and readers may find her emotional struggle histrionic. Then again, the same could be said at times of Emma Bovary. This tale should please readers who enjoy romantic drama, and may be of interest to fans of Flaubert.
An amusing, if drawn-out, satire of suburban life.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9983805-4-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Real Nice Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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