First published in 1982 in a version so heavily edited that horror writer Matheson (7 Steps to Midnight, 1993, etc.) took his name off it, this ghost story is now offered in a restored, uncut edition. Television scripter David and his wife, Ellen, have returned to New York's Logan Beach, the site of their honeymoon 21 years earlier. Things go wrong from the first. The cottage they remembered has been washed away by a hurricane, and its replacement is dusty, depressing, and abnormally cold—hardly the place to revive their troubled marriage. Ellen leaves their bed to walk on the beach, and David discovers he is not alone. The most beautiful woman he has ever seen tells him about her love for the artist who last rented the house. Both disturbed and enchanted by Marianna, David keeps her visit a secret. He tries to return her locket the next day, but finds only a boarded-up shack where her house should stand. Marianna returns to him, however, and while Ellen sleeps upstairs, the pair has wild sex. Ice-cold and completely drained after this encounter, David promises himself it won't happen again. But whenever Ellen falls asleep or leaves the house, Marianna arrives. David feels less in control each time they meet. Mrs. Brentwood, who lives in a nearby mansion, tells David that Marianna is dead and remains earthbound only to feed her degenerate passions. His neighbor urges him to flee before he is driven insane. As the evidence mounts up, David moves from outraged incredulity to belief and convinces Ellen they must leave the house. But Marianna steps in, and David must fight the erotic ghost who possesses him to save the woman he truly loves. A chilling supernatural sortie marred only by a self-important epilogue about the power of the mind and the true meaning of love.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-85712-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
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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