A superlative family saga that examines the concept of freedom in vividly dramatized personal and political terms, by a Puerto Rican novelist (The Youngest Doll, etc., not reviewed) whose smooth mastery of her ambitious materials is reminiscent of Gabriel Garc°a M†rquez at his very best. Wealthy importer Quintin Mendizabal discovers the manuscript of a novel his wife, Isabel Monfort, is writing about the histories of their entwined families. It's a chronicle of material enrichment and sexual exploitation, of familiar unhappiness and ethnic conflictin short, a microcosm of Puerto Rico's uncertain status throughout this century as an American commonwealth teetering uncertainly between the opposed poles of statehood and independence. As Quintin reads, he becomes increasingly disturbed to find, as he views things, that Isabel ``had made up incredible things about his family and left out much of what had really happened.'' He pens notes in the margins, questioning Isabel's conclusions and correcting her factual errors. Incredible events and brilliantly realized characters emerge from both their versionsincluding Quintin's father Buenaventura, a self-made man who may have colluded with the Germans during WW I; his maternal grandfather Aristides, a police chief whose dedication to the cause of statehood obliged him to murder his own people; and the Mendizabals' half-breed servant Petra, a rock indeed who outlasts several of their generations and lives to judge them all. The novel is a seamless web of plot, character, and haunting imagery (the lagoon on which the family's imposing mansion stands is itself dying, of industrial pollution). As the mingled love and hatred that bind Isabel and Quintin together rise to a painful crescendo, a plebiscite on the issue of statehood vs. independence reveals the flaws in the family's substructure, pitting parents against children, and provoking Isabel to take by force the independence she can never otherwise attain. Its triumphant conclusion seals their common fate and fulfills the aims of an overpowering novel that looks, at least on first reading, very like a masterpiece.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-17311-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
