A Caine Mutiny for the Reconstruction era. Well done, even if some fans of historical fiction will prefer their fiction a...
Suppose, just suppose, the Radical Republicans decided that the amnesty Ulysses S. Grant offered to Johnny Reb didn’t have a sufficiently punitive sting. What might have happened had they put Robert E. Lee—Saddam Hussein in gray—on trial for treason?
Yeah, and what would have happened if Julius Caesar had had a machine gun? Hardhearted readers of Civil War history have little patience with counterfactuals, but such departures from the strict truth can be highly instructive—and besides, veteran historian Fleming (Washington’s Secret War, 2005) knows how to spin a tale. As his latest opens, New York news mogul Charles Dana, well embedded inside the War Department, is hopping mad, bent on punishing the entire rebel South for its perfidy, and he expects his Irish flunky Jeremiah O’Brien to hop to the cause by whispering into a few well-placed Union ears, agitating for Confederate war hero Robert E. Lee’s arrest and trial for treason—and a finale in which Lee swings at the end of a rope. O’Brien, himself embedded with a Louisiana fille de joi who has just a little more wartime experience than she lets on, balks. Dana barks. A kangaroo court is assembled; embittered abolitionists and anti-rebels such as Benjamin Butler and Ambrose Burnside fulminate; strict constructionists object; and much legalistic back and forth ensues even as the behind-the-scenes action takes on the dimensions of a Len Deighton plot. Even when Grant takes the stand and contradicts key Radical assertions, and even as other rebel-hating Yankee generals tear up when Lee speaks of honor, Fleming keeps things plausible—and, happily, takes pains that his dialogue not slide into anachronism. And whether intentional or not, it’s all quite timely, as latter-day politicos debate states’ rights and the legality of the Dred Scott decision.
A Caine Mutiny for the Reconstruction era. Well done, even if some fans of historical fiction will prefer their fiction a little more, well, historical.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-31352-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2005
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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