Through intelligent selection and commentary, Jones (ed. Fantasy Tales) and Campbell (The Count of Eleven, p. 479, etc.) again prove that horror literature, widely considered an oxymoron not so very long ago, is a field of fiction worthy of serious cultivation. As in their first two annuals, the authors have combed through sources both high-profile (A Whisper of Blood, 1991, etc.) and desperately obscure (Tekeli-li! Journal of Terror) to dig out ``a varied selection...that illustrates the themes and ideas currently being explored in the genre.'' The emphasis on ideas can be seen in the authors' roster, which includes big names (Robert McCammon, Dennis Etchison, Thomas Tessier, et al.), fast-rising young stars (Nancy Collins, Thomas Ligotti, Kathe Koja, et al.), and several newcomers—but only a couple of splatterpunks and absolutely no hacks, with most of the 29 entries distinguished by deft style and ambitious subjects. The triangle of love, suffering, and death surfaces as the dominant theme—from K.W. Jeter's opening ``True Love'' (a vampire's daughter cares for her senile but immortal father) through Douglas Clegg's gothic ``Where Flies are Born'' (a woman reanimates her dead child through grotesque means), Alan Brennert's ``Ma Qui'' and S.P. Somtow's ``Chui Chai'' (two wrenching Vietnam-set tales), and the collection's strongest story, Grant Morrison's ``The Braille Encyclopedia'' (a sly shocker about the pursuit of sensual pleasure), and others. A few stories fail, mostly through straining (e.g., those by David J. Schow and Charles Grant) but the vast majority succeed, and equally of interest is the editors' opinionated rundown of the year's (1991) horror fiction, criticism, film and comics, and their invaluable necrology. For the third year running, horror's annual of record, as well as its premier showcase. Not to be missed by any serious fan.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1992
ISBN: 0-88184-858-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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