Harrison's final entry in a prehistory trilogy set in the Aleutian Islands (My Sister the Moon, 1992, etc.) provides no more and no less than its predecessors, which means it is a standout, but only in the context of a genre never known for fine writing. In 7038 b.c., expert carver Kiin—the imperiled Pauline character from My Sister the Moon—is returned to the Walrus People after sinister shaman wannabe Raven kills her husband. She must leave behind Samiq, her dead husband's brother and her true love, who is the father of her twin sons. Meanwhile, Kukutux has also suffered the loss of her husband, who died on a whale-hunting expedition, leaving her with their son, an ulaq (hillside dwelling), and just enough food to survive the winter. Her only hope is that another hunter will take her as his wife. The adventuresome story of Kiin and the more emotional journey of Kukutux wind around with so many twists and turns that they sometimes grow hard to follow. The fun lies in the parallels—none of them forced—between these early days and our own, like a general disdain for the unsanitary Ugyuun people, whom Kiin recognizes when she meets them because ``each woman had the snarled and dirty hair of the Ugyuun.'' The language and dialogue sometimes verge on me-Tarzan-you-Jane campiness: A trader proposes to Kukutux by offering her a necklace and stating, ``I do not always travel...I have a good lodge. I need a wife.'' But that's part of the fun, too. Harrison provides a glossary of Native American words that certainly comes in handy. On the other hand, it's not clear why certain names have already been translated in the text (e.g., ``Owl'' and ``Spotted Egg'') while others have not (``Waxtal''). A cross between the Flintstones and Dynasty that somehow manages to work on its own level. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-12888-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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
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