The Guyanese-born Heath (the superb Armstrong Trilogy, 1994, etc.) surpasses himself with this ambitious, vividly written, psychologically rich chronicle—set in his own colorfully multiracial native country—of compromised ambition and family conflict. Originally published in 1988 in England (where Heath now lives), it's the story of Betta Singh, a physician of Indian descent who gives up a promising private practice to work as a GMO (Government Medical Officer) on a Guyanese ``sugar estate'' (i.e., plantation), hoping to help stem the tide of malaria that regularly strikes down its exploited and neglected native workers. And, most memorably, it's the story of his wealthy, domineering widowed mother (who ridicules Betta's selflessness), ``an exile from marriage and from her country . . . stranded on the shore of an unrelenting loneliness.'' As Betta challenges his heartless superiors, then painstakingly adjusts to the defeat of his ideals and the complex pressures of marriage and fatherhood, Mrs. Singh sternly deals with her own embattled household, meanwhile falling under the calculating influence of the Pujaree, a Hindu holy man who seduces her and takes over her home and money, to the end of building his own temple. The story features a host of skillfully drawn secondary characters, all of whom exhibit entirely credible conflicting impulses and desires, examined with nonjudgmental understanding and sympathy (even the crafty Pujaree emerges as a very human mixture of pure and impure motives). And in the harrowing progression from mother's love through sexual enslavement to climactic violence and madness of Betta's larger-than-life mother, the author has achieved a masterly feat of characterization: This is a woman whom no reader will easily forget. Heath's brilliant novel—also distinguished for its flexible and lyrical prose, expert handling of its several native populations, varieties of pidgin English, and memorable use of figurative language—was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It's hard to believe it didn't win.
Pub Date: Nov. 28, 1995
ISBN: 0-89255-213-1
Page Count: 438
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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