Still, though not as smoothly told as it might have been in the hands of a Vargas Llosa or García Márquez, a good yarn—and...
A one-time vice president of Nicaragua explores dark corners of his nation’s history in this blend of historical novel and noir procedural.
“It was to be a historical novel,” writes Ramírez of the making of his book, which was written and published in Spanish more than 30 years ago, “but also a realist novel, a mannerist novel, a police thriller, a courtroom drama.” Elements of all these run through his narrative, though perhaps with a touch too much emphasis on the courtroom drama part of the mix, which goes on too long without a suitably Perry Mason–esque moment of reckoning (“Please tell the court: Did you take bicarbonate of soda to the room with a glass of water and a spoon to dissolve the medicine”). The premise is transparent enough: in 1933, a young man, an “attractive male specimen,” is both wooing and apparently doing away with some of the most eligible bachelorettes in León, but it’s not really for his allegedly lethal rakishness that he’s in trouble. Hauled to the bench, he affords Ramírez—the winner of last year’s prestigious Carlos Fuentes Prize—an opportunity to satirize Nicaragua’s bourgeois society of the 1930s, which ended in the rise of the Somoza dictatorship. With a few liberties taken, and with a large and diverse cast of characters, Ramírez works with historical fact: there really was a “Casanova killer” of the day, and of course there really was a dictatorship that put an end to the niceties of law—and a dictator who had personal reasons for disliking the defendant, whose story did not end well. Ramírez’s tale, long and diffuse, may be of more historical than literary interest to many readers in exploring a society that was ripe for strongman rule, planting the seeds of the Sandinista revolution half a century later.
Still, though not as smoothly told as it might have been in the hands of a Vargas Llosa or García Márquez, a good yarn—and considering the lack of Central American literature available in English, it enriches a slender library.Pub Date: May 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62054-014-5
Page Count: 502
Publisher: McPherson & Company
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
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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