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THE BETWEEN

Intriguing first novel, by a Miami Herald syndicated ``dating'' columnist, that dances among horror, the occult, and a rational explanation for its weird moments, . At seven, Hilton James found his grandmother Nana dead on the kitchen floor and ran for help. But Nana was up and cooking dinner by the time he returned with help. Then, the next year, Hilton disobeyed Nana while swimming, got caught in the undertow, and was saved from drowning by Nana, who in turn allowed herself to be sucked under. Now, nearing 40, Hilton, an African-American, is head social worker at a Miami recovery center, has married Dede Campbell, the newly elected first black female circuit court judge in Dade County, and has two children. Hilton, however, fears that he's lived 30 years on borrowed time and that that time's up. Clairvoyant events point to Nana's having refused to die because she foresaw Hilton's drowning and stayed alive to save him. As a blind homeless man at the clinic tells him, there is a place between life and death called The Between, where ``travelers'' wait before entering the final door—all this from a blind man who actually died about two hours before Hilton had his talk with him! And what of Hilton's seduction by a supersexy client—a seduction he later finds never took place? Hilton undergoes still more fantasies bordering on virtual reality as, meanwhile, Dede receives racist death threats by mail—threats that, psychically, Hilton sees come from Charles Ray Goode, a released rapist whom Dede once sent to jail. With a psychiatrist, Hilton hashes over ``death cultures'' brought to this country from Africa, but chooses to agree that it's more likely that he's a schizophrenic. Later, Dede throws him out of the house for neglecting his children and physically hurting his son, but takes him back when told of Hilton's seeming illness. Together, they will face the man terrorizing them.... Neatly plotted and smoothly told, with an ending that avoids concrete explanations about Hilton's mental state.

Pub Date: May 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-06-017250-9

Page Count: 288

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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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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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

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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