Competent but no more—and, of course, one always wants something beyond mere competence from a surgeon.
Standard-issue medical procedural from CNN medical correspondent and surgeon Gupta (Cheating Death, 2009).
In this debut novel, Gupta commits some of the more common errors of Fiction 101 by telling more than showing, and then showing the mundane with as much attention as the distinctive. Thus the second sentence of the book: “Wearing bright blue polyester jumpsuits with a yellow insignia on the left front pocket and standard-issue black boots, they were moving fast.” Moving fast, check. But would it have mattered whether the uniforms were of green cotton, the badges red, the boots brown? The matter-of-factness and attention to every detail would probably serve a surgeon in theater very well, the purposes of a yarn less effectively; yet both qualities overwhelm the dramatic: “The aneurysm, a small blister on the surface of an artery, had suddenly let loose, spraying blood throughout her brain. She had likely felt a sudden thunderclap headache, and within seconds was rendered unconscious.” “One of the possible risks was damage to the olfactory nerve that ran near the cancerous growth. If that was nicked or cut, the patient would lose the sense of smell.” Just so, Gupta’s characters are of the stock variety: the hardbitten, arrogant master cutter, the encouraging mentor, the poor kid out to save the world ("the first Robidaux to consider college," the foreign resident who works twice as hard as everyone else—in short, the kind of people whom, mutatis mutandis, you’d send into combat in a World War II film, or, in this instance, into the emergency ward. In that regard, Gupta’s book makes its greatest contribution: It shows that a doctor’s life isn’t all glamour and golf on one hand or completely clinical on the other, even if most of the coitus is interruptus. All does not end well, not for certain patients and certain docs alike, but the quotidian world ticks on; it’s very much as if James Michener had attempted a medical thriller, though without the thrill and without Michener’s epic length.
Competent but no more—and, of course, one always wants something beyond mere competence from a surgeon.Pub Date: March 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-446-58385-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
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
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
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