First published in 1932, two years before its author died destitute in New York City, this delightful roman Ö clef about the Harlem Renaissance returns to print as an inaugural volume in Modern Library’s new series about that golden moment in American literary history. Thurman (b. 1902), better known for his novel about interracial prejudice, The Blacker the Berry (1929), was part of an intellectual group that included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and Countee Cullen, all of whom make cameo appearances (under aliases) in this spirited satire, which mostly takes aim at Locke’s much-celebrated notion of “the New Negro,” a concept Thurman mocks as too serious and uplifting. But he also turns his sharp wit against the character who most resembles himself, Raymond Taylor, a pretentious young writer who fancies himself a Nietzchean individualist, above mere racial concerns, and dedicated only to art. Thurman’s self-deprecating humor focuses on Taylor’s easy cynicism, as well as on his daily dissipation at “Niggerati Manor,” his name for the apartment building in Harlem where many of the story’s aspiring artists spend their time swilling gin. Owned by good-hearted Euphoria Blake, a businesswoman who once harbored artistic aspirations of her own, the apartment house is also home to Paul Arbian, a decadent, bisexual artist dedicated to the spirit of Oscar Wilde; Eustace, a singer who prefers classical music to the spirituals everyone wants him to sing; and Pelham Gaylord, a servile wannabe, whose own pathetic poetry serves as evidence in a rape case, and also underlines the pretense in the effusions of his role-models, Raymond and Paul. After a sober gathering of the literati, Euphoria decides to close the “miscegenated bawdy house,” another victim of well-intentioned ideas. Thurman’s clever portrait gallery reflects many of the competing notions of its time—between the masses and individuality, between art and uplift, between civilization and primitivism, between separatism and assimilation. But what truly animates this smart fiction is the timeless belief that ideas have consequences.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-375-75232-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
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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