A loosely woven series of coming-of-age tales set in 1960s America.
In this collection, Herron (One Way Street, 2014, etc.) tackles big themes: mental illness, war, loyalty, abuse, friendship and family. Readers might easily get lost in such broad terrain, but Herron keeps them tethered by a unifying question: How are memories constrained by perspective? In his foreword, Herron describes the book as both anthology and novel; chapters share characters and settings but offer original details and points of view. The first is in small-town America, 1962. Paul, a teenager, watches a new family move into the house across from his on Reichold Street, and he confronts Albert, who looks like a bully, for the first time. Over the next few years, Albert’s stepfather, Carl, terrorizes his family and the neighborhood with drunken abuse as Paul tries to help and Albert rebels. Readers learn to hate Carl while losing hope for Albert. Subsequent chapters, told by Carl, Albert, their family members and other kids on Reichold Street, add layers to these events. Carl’s chapter, seen through his confusion, medication and booze, offers a frightening yet compassionate view of mental illness and its stigma, especially in the ’60s. These opening chapters are the strongest in the collection; the characters are bold, the plot twists surprising, and the point—that we never fully know a person or his or her story—heartbreakingly clear. The middle sections, related by minor characters, add little to the overall narrative; some read as filler, although one, told by a Reichold Street kid lured by organized crime, makes a fine stand-alone story. Toward the end of the book, Herron returns to Albert, his two tours in Vietnam and the pall of that war over American youth. Through flashbacks to Reichold Street, readers further witness Carl’s lifelong, devastating influence on Albert; an additional chapter from Carl’s perspective would nicely round out the book.
Skillfully written and emotionally charged.
Pub Date: March 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475106237
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
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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