A thoughtful exploration of life amid urban blight and in prison that’s partially diminished by a love story that seems...
A defense attorney attempts to save her client from the death penalty—and falls in love with him in the process—in this novel.
Alejandro Soto is serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole for a double murder: He killed Carlos Sanchez, the “cruel, sadistic, barrio dope dealer,” and the culprit’s mother, who happened to be home at the time. Suddenly, Alejandro is charged with the decade-old homicide of another nefarious figure, “completely bogus” charges that would be meaningless if not for the fact that a conviction could render him vulnerable to the death penalty. He’s represented by Barbara Blake—a tough criminal defense attorney who spent years as a public defender before she went into business for herself. He’s immediately entranced by her beauty and command in the courtroom, and she requites his intense infatuation, forming a primal connection. In fact, Barbara falls so “hopelessly in love” with Alejandro that she frets it will be discovered and compromise her ability to adequately defend him, a terrifying prospect given the enormity of the trial’s stakes. But internally, she gushes “giddily”: “I have never, but never, felt like this before.” Ruiz (Life Long, 2017) sensitively chronicles Alejandro’s disadvantaged, often brutal life in California, caught between the mercurial tyranny of his father and the merciless nihilism of the streets, an intricate personal history the inmate unreliably relates to Barbara out of a profound sense of shame. The author adeptly captures the grim reality of prison life—Alejandro is incarcerated in a “Security Housing Unit” reserved only for the “worst of the worst,” and his attempts to “ward off insanity and suicide” are powerfully depicted. Ruiz artfully develops Alejandro into a complex character—both a victim and murderer, neither a hero nor villain, and a man who takes solace in the company of great literature while in prison. Barbara, too, is a captivating figure—twice divorced, she rose from the ashes of romantic failure to become a brilliant lawyer, and her “unique style of cross-examination,” part rhetorical concision and part savage mortification, is thrilling to behold. In addition, the author writes in crisply evocative prose, both poignant and lucid. But the principal premise that undergirds the entire plot—Barbara’s rhapsodic attraction to Alejandro—is presented as a brute fact rather than rendered literarily believable: “She loved him, she loved him, she loved him. And she was going to enjoy and revel in the moment forever….She could live with the two killings.” The central difficulty is not that the bond is inconceivable but rather that Ruiz never makes the effort to fully explain it or to slowly develop a love that defies convention and expectation. There’s much to admire in this deeply intelligent novel—especially its nuanced presentation of Alejandro’s troubled upbringing. But since everything hinges on Barbara’s unrestrained affection for Alejandro, and that love remains bewildering throughout the tale, the intense relationship becomes an ostentatious flaw and an exasperating distraction.
A thoughtful exploration of life amid urban blight and in prison that’s partially diminished by a love story that seems phantasmagoric.Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-937484-67-5
Page Count: 327
Publisher: Amika Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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