A thriller whose characters possess such psychological complexity that readers become as preoccupied with plumbing their depths as with figuring out whodunit. Filing a sexual harassment suit is difficult enough, but matters become extra-complicated when Teresa Crowder points the finger at Blythe Oaks, the female senior clerk of the first Mormon Supreme Court justice, Lester Horner. Teresa's sister Lauren (seen in bestseller Private Practices, 1993, with fiancÇ/protagonist Alan Gregory) consults an acquaintance, Salt Lake City lawyer Robin Torr, who takes the case after considerable doubts about challenging the powerful Church but does not anticipate that Blythe will be stalked and killed. The Utah residents featured here are not polyester cutouts but people with diverse lifestyles and varying religious zeal; there are so many hints of unrevealed psychic levels that few characters are above suspicion. Knowing that the stalker is female, the reader re-examines the featured women: Are Teresa's historic disappearances during times of trouble now a screen for murderous actions? Could Robin's dissatisfaction with her husband be an indication of homoerotic desires? Is Blythe's college classmate's fondness for flowers a link to the blooms that the stalker leaves for her? Similarly, knowing the killer to be a man with a dog, the reader looks twice at: Robin's Mormon-sympathetic husband; the not-so-saintly Latter-Day Saint Lauren meets at a pool hall, whose drinking bouts make him unpredictable; and Justice Horner's old friend, who may kill to maintain the reputation of the Church. Lauren and Robin shelve the harassment case as they conduct their own murder investigation, aided by Alan, who sleuths with his policeman pal Sam Purdy while on their Slickrock mountain biking trip (an excellent opportunity for readers to take a spin through the Southwest). White defies stereotypes to produce some of the subtlest and most teasing red herrings ever. (First printing of 35,000)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-670-85040-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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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