A powerful exploration of war’s effects on those who survive it, and specifically of the devastating ambiguities of “survivor’s guilt”—in a first novel by a journalist heretofore known for his 1997 Harper’s article “Prisoner of War” and other reports from such fronts as Bosnia and Chechnya. The story begins in Kurdistan under Iraqui attack, where “war photographer” Mark Walsh, wounded by artillery fire, has survived, though separated from his colleague and close friend Colin, and traumatized more than he knows. Neither the fatalistic acceptance of the Kurdish doctor who treats him nor his return home to New York and his lover Elena forestalls Mark’s increasingly debilitating disorientation and physical lassitude. Then, to Spanish-born Elena’s dismay, her grandfather Joaquin Morales learns of Mark’s condition, and arrives from Spain prepared to “purify” him—as, we learn in carefully spaced narrative disclosures, Joaquin had done during the Spanish Civil War. He had run an “institute” then dedicated to rehabilitating members of Generalissimo Franco’s notorious “blood squads”—and Elena has never forgiven “the Fascist Father Confessor.— As this harrowing tale moves toward an overpowering conclusion, Mark and Joaquin together—and Elena observing and loving them both—painstakingly accomplish conscience’s intricate balancing act: accepting responsibility for one’s mistakes while simultaneously forgiving oneself for living, and for being unable to save those who died. Triage is superbly conceived and plotted, and written in an understated prose that wrings great resonance from delicately placed simple sentences (as Mark laboriously makes love, “His back arched and Elena imagined blood spraying inside him”; as they lie in bed, “Elena heard the soft brush of his eyelashes against the pillow, knew he was still looking out at the night—). A magnificent homage to the method, subject, and spirit of another Scribner author, Ernest Hemingway, that reads, and feels like, a contemporary A Farewell to Arms; it really does.
Pub Date: Oct. 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-84695-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
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
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