Author of several excellent high-action period juveniles for older readers, Sutcliffe applies her straight-arrow narration and uncluttered staging to a fictionalized version of the true story of a Scottish gunner and swordsman—who was taken prisoner by the Turks in 1807 and later became Emir of the holy city of Medina. To his surprise, Thomas Keith of the 78th Highlanders was not sent to Cairo after his capture in Egypt during the Napoleonic War. Instead, he was bought from his captors by the commander at El Hamid. Resigned, Thomas will settle down to learn Arabic and, at the suggestion of a courteous, friendly French colonel, study the Koran. (After his conversion to Islam, he'll be known as Ibrahim Effendi.) It is Thomas' friendship with Tussun, son of the Ottoman Viceroy in Egypt that shapes his career. (It was Tussun who released him from the commander.) Meanwhile, even off the battleground, Thomas has narrow escapes: once he's saved by the Vicereine's diplomacy and at another time he fights off ten men. There are also many forays of war, including the final campaigns to free the cities of the Hijaz on the western border of the Red Sea. Blood and sand there are aplenty—along with pounding hoofs; screaming men and beasts; war cries; long, long vistas, and, throughout, a tangle of treachery, baroque negotiations, and courtesies. Finally, Thomas has a brief interval of true happiness with the wife he rescued from a massacre, and he treasures the friendship with Tussun—but at the close, death carries the day. Although the boyish high-minded simplicity of the hero might be suited more to the older juvenile audience, this is nonetheless a forthright tale of national/tribal war, with action as clean as a hound's tooth.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1989
ISBN: 0340415185
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton/Hachette UK
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1989
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
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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