A courtly Richmond dilettante's visit to Philadelphia turns into a nightmare when he is mistaken—and mistaken, and mistaken- -for another man. As his train pulls into 30th Street station, a porter hands Tristram Heade his lost wallet. But it isn't his wallet, as he discovers after he checks into his hotel—not his usual hotel, but another one, where everyone greets him as Angus Markham, the name inside the wallet. Tristram can see a general resemblance between himself and the photo of Angus, but that's no reason why dewy Fleur Grunwald should turn up outside his door, announce that she's finally ready to take the advice he, Angus, gave her three years ago at Sarasota to leave her abusive husband. Trapped first by his fear of making a scene, then by solicitude toward Fleur, Tristram finds himself insensibly slipping into Angus Markham's identity, even as he realizes that Fleur herself has an alter ego named Zoe, whose words and actions bespeak a worldly knowledge and a thirst for revenge far beyond Fleur's experience. When Tristram goes to have it out with Fleur's maligned husband, Otto Grunwald, Otto calmly denies every one of Zoe's impassioned charges. Otto tells Tristram that not only does he not forcibly tattoo Fleur, as she claims he does, but that the tattoos that so horrified Tristram are fakes, vegetable oil rather than ink, applied by Fleur herself. Tormented by indecision about whom to believe, Tristram returns to the Grunwald home determined to prove or disprove Fleur's story once and for all—but he hasn't counted on the extent to which he's been charmed out of himself, not by Fleur, but by Angus Markham, and by the glass eye that seems to have been watching him ever since he picked it up outside Fleur's apartment. With echoes of Poe and Henry James, Smith (Snake Eyes, 1991, etc.) gives this anecdotal tale a shivery intensity. (Book-of- the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selections)
Pub Date: March 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-525-93947-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
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
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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