A pair of quietly disturbing tales that will surely resonate with readers.
In this debut book, two novellas focus on loners whose seemingly unremarkable lives simmer with darkness.
In Trampoline Games, 12-year-old Jake Lore and his mother move to Sandy, Utah, in the summer of 1986. His father remains in California on business while Jake adjusts to an almost exclusively Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints neighborhood. He’s immediately smitten with Debra Hanson, the girl next door who’s the same age, but even more drawn to neighbor Finn Levy. The two boys jump on the Hansons’ trampoline when the family attends Sunday morning church. But their activities become increasingly riskier and more violent: poltergeisting homes (nightly invasions to move around or take small items) or throwing lawn darts with little warning to others. In the more mysterious The Moth Orchid, Alasa Memnov raises orchids in Fairbanks, Alaska, and periodically visits her mother, Bebe, in a nursing home. That’s where research physician Dr. Rene Funes approaches Alasa. Evidently, Bebe had given Funes her daughter’s genetic material years ago, and Alasa is susceptible to the same rare form of dementia afflicting her mother. The doctor suggests Alasa return to her hometown of Lotus as a “cognitive exercise.” Though the intent is to aid her memory, the trip may instead prove too revealing for Alasa. Masters skillfully puts ordinary characters in troubling and sometimes-dire circumstances. Jake, for example, is a typical tween (he gets gum in his hair) while Finn introduces precarious elements into the boy’s life, like ingredients for a bomb. In the same vein, Alasa’s hometown excursion is nostalgic but also becomes a struggle to remember her past. Both disconcerting novellas have startling turns, including a sudden physical assault in Trampoline Games that may be the book’s most horrifying moment. Though Orchid relies heavily on a late twist, it doesn’t make its coda any less unsettling. The prose, like the stories, is somber but lyrical: “Bright, crisp stars shone like tiny holes poked in oilcloth, as if the night sky had been draped over an adjacent world made of blinding light.”
A pair of quietly disturbing tales that will surely resonate with readers.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9984146-6-9
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Radial Books
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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