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HOLDING ON

A finely crafted, often haunting portrait of a steel town and its men.

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A collection of short stories documents the beginning of the end of a western Pennsylvania steel town.

Furnass, Pennsylvania, runs on steel mills: “The mills were a fact of life in Furnass, any part of Furnass, the same as the hills and the river and the trees; there was always the rust-covered smoke drifting over the valley, the steam from the coke ovens billowing up like huge genies to dull the sun.” In these 13 stories, set from the early 1950s to the early ’80s, the town’s citizens live and learn in the relative comfort of the steel economy—despite persistent rumors that it might all be going away. A 12-year-old boy buys a set of toy soldiers from a military antiques shop, intrigued by the rumors that surround the store’s handsy owner. Afterward, he encounters a different sexual ritual playing out in the woods near his home: one that ends, inevitably, with territorial violence between the town’s teenage gangs. Three former high school football players—now steelworkers—reminisce about a teammate who made it out of town with a mix of admiration and resentment. A Furnass mechanic is called to work on a Porsche that has broken down on the outskirts of town, which leads to a bit of class tension with the foreign car’s owner. Snodgrass (Across the River, 2018, etc.) shows how the fault lines that exist in any society—between men and women, friends and strangers—are only exacerbated once economic anxieties begin to rear their head. In the final tale, the eponymous “Hold On,” mill closures and layoffs haunt a social occasion involving three co-workers. A restored motorcycle appears to provide a welcome distraction from the uncertainty, but it proves to be a painful metaphor for the whole thing. The author’s measured, plainspoken prose appropriately calls to mind the dirty realism of the ’80s. “I finally give up and go home,” narrates one damaged protagonist, a burglar and drug addict. “It’s been a while since I broke in there, and when I’m hanging out at Mikey’s All-Niter and the old dolly comes in, I’m careful to stay out of sight. Somebody put another sheet of plywood over that transom, so it’s better to lay low for a while and let things cool down.” Between the stories, Snodgrass includes a series of Hemingway-esque interludes, which follow two Scottish soldiers back in 1764 as they hack their way through the forest that will one day be Furnass: a de facto foundational myth that foreshadows the struggles of the region’s subsequent inhabitants. The result is a convincing meditation on the nature of work and manhood in industrial America (for these are tales about men and their particularly male insecurities; a weakness of the book is that women generally appear only as wives, mothers, or objects of sexual desire). The author makes great use of a linked short story collection’s ability to capture a time and place, with each piece shining brighter when reflected off the others.

A finely crafted, often haunting portrait of a steel town and its men.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-0-9997699-4-2

Page Count: 211

Publisher: Calling Crow Press

Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2019

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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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

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MAGIC HOUR

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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