Following in the footsteps of Iris Murdoch, Vickers is concerned with the spiritual dimensions of love and love’s effect on...
A psychiatrist with his own bedeviling ghosts finds himself irrevocably changed by his interactions with a patient in this philosophical romance from British novelist Vickers (Mr. Golightly’s Holiday, 2004, etc.).
David, who has never resolved his guilt over the accidental death of his older brother as a small child, specializes in treating suicidal patients. His latest, Elizabeth, is slow to open up until she and David discuss the art of Caravaggio. Elizabeth tells him her story in one hours-long session. She was deeply in love with an art scholar, Thomas, who introduced her to Caravaggio years earlier. Elizabeth and Thomas spent one perfect night together, then lost track of each other for years (shades of An Affair to Remember). Elizabeth made an unhappy marriage and bore two children before she and Thomas found each other again and rekindled their love as soulmates. Although Thomas was ever patient and devoted, Elizabeth was unable to move beyond indecision and distrust of her and Thomas’s feelings. While visiting Thomas in Italy, Elizabeth acceded to a summons home from her tyrannical mother-in-law. Thomas had a heart attack and died before she could return to him. She has never forgiven herself. Immediately after hearing Elizabeth’s story, David learns that his own wife, Olivia, whom he does not really like, is having an affair with his best friend, who happens to be married to the woman David loved but dumped for Olivia. Elizabeth checks out of the hospital, but she has opened David’s eyes to the truths in his own life. While in Italy to give a lecture against the indiscriminate use of lobotomies, David sees Elizabeth one last time. His lecture becomes a moving description of Caravaggio’s painting The Supper at Emmaus.
Following in the footsteps of Iris Murdoch, Vickers is concerned with the spiritual dimensions of love and love’s effect on the soul.Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-374-22190-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
© Copyright 2024 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.
