This collection of short fiction by Dillard (English/Hollins College; The First Man on the Sun, 1983, etc.) runs the gamut from touching to tediously overwritten. The choppy title story contains four separate narratives: A tormented, suicidal punk rock singer's tale is portentous and overwrought, while that of a writer afflicted with a 10-year writing block is predictable; the most affecting segment concerns a prisoner who escapes from his cell only to find himself trapped in darkness, unsure whether his next step will lead to oblivion or freedom. The characters in Dillard's takeoffs of southern literature are more likable and less overwhelmed by symbolism. Abel Boyd, protagonist of ``The Road,'' returns to his childhood home after an absence of 38 years. The author movingly depicts Abel's confusion as he encounters a redneck bartender; his old childhood playmate, now a respected citizen of the black community; and an astute young prostitute with the proverbial heart of gold. ``That's What I Like (About the South)'' coyly reverses all the men's and women's names (a girl is named Roy, her boyfriend Shirley, etc.) to play upon the ``defining characteristics of southern fiction.'' Sentimental Roy has a typically eccentric southern family and sense of community, but Dillard writes about her with a comic, gentle touch as she loses Shirley to another girl—strangely enough, also named Shirley. ``The Bog'' purports to be the journal of an academic trying to achieve ``intercellular communication'' by using his powerfully directed thoughts to will insects (and sometimes humans) to fulfill his desires. The satire of academia is uneven here, especially in the portrayal of feminist author Sara Band, a hot number in a green pantsuit who sleeps with all her male colleagues. Still, there are some lovely lyrical passages about the professor's successful and unsuccessful interactions with nature. Best and most appealing when the author steers clear of overwriting his characters and laying on the parody too thick.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8071-1839-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Louisiana State Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
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
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
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