. . ."in a poem you make your point with lemons-on-fire." In a review, even a Kirkus review, it is necessary to be more prosaically straightforward. What, then, given this recycled collection of items as disparate as the elements in any one of them, are we to make of Ruth Krauss? There's a shade of '60s twee (admittedly staked out by Krauss in the '50s) to the best of her stuff; and at worst it verges on airy nothings as in "What a Fine Day," when stripped of the original music and Remy Charlip pictures. . . or treads a blurry line around the kingdom of cute baby talk ("Making Sandwich Kisses") or cotton-candy fancies ("The Doll in Pink"). Whimsy sprouts like button mushrooms and threatens perpetually to cloy, and sometimes does. How else can one respond to "The Fortune-Teller Flower?" But then, who can keep a straight face through "50,000 Dogwood Trees at Valley Forge". . . or (let's admit it) "Spring Song: Winnie-the-Pooh and William Shakespeare?" Or fail to be disarmed by the flashes of wanton incongruity in "Play I" (with pineapples and spies) or "There's a Little Ambiguity Over There Among the Bluebells?" Much of the kid stuff was better served in separate, picture-hook slices, and ". . . but for whom" is the obvious cavil here, with all the little kisses and wishes and horsies in their avant-garde clothing scattered in among the weary rue of "If Only," the allusions to Shakespeare's married-man cuckoo, and the lines from Gertrude Stein and Molly Bloom. The publishers designate this for "all ages," which is often an optimistic 'alternative to throwing up their hands. But if this doesn't belong everywhere, or even anywhere in particular, you'd better make a place for it somewhere over there among the bluebells. Someone's likely to be lit up by those lemons-on-fire and might even take a heady dive into that "lake in the middle of a sentence.
Pub Date: Aug. 10, 1981
ISBN: 0688005985
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1981
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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