Stylistically nuanced and psychologically astute, this tight, dense novel gives complex history a human face.
Uninvited but unavoidable, the ghosts of politics past haunt the living in this deep and subtle novel about the wary interracial relationship of two Capetown women.
A “decent” Afrikaner, Marion Campbell tries her hardest to play it safe. But safety isn’t really an option in post-apartheid South Africa, argues Wicomb (David’s Story, 2001, etc.). Proud proprietor of a mid-sized agency dubbed MCTravel, Marion confines her own journeying to a restricted circuit of sites. Sparing herself the “dubious hygiene of hotels” and the intrusiveness of strangers, she prizes routine: visiting her aging father, a former traffic cop now well “past the fury of manhood,” and lolling on the balcony of her tasteful beachfront apartment. It’s on that balcony that a bird suffers a heart attack, dying among the pricey scatter cushions: The accident presages drastic change, soon brought about by young Brenda McKay. MCTravel’s first black employee, Brenda treads “a delicate boundary between respect and mockery” before erupting over the staff’s myopia regarding the country’s troubled history: “You couldn’t imagine yourself then as one of the underdogs.” Shortly thereafter, Marion manages a fender-bender with a brand-new BMW; her date with a new easygoing boyfriend turns rocky as he begins to realize that she’s “difficult”; and she’s flooded with disturbing memories of Helen, her disapproving mother who’d recently died of cancer, and fond reminiscences of Tokkie, the black woman who tended her as a child. In time, as her world unravels, Marion comes to discover that she’s unwanted in both the familial and political senses. Revelations from the government’s aptly named Truth and Reconciliation Commission set off a series of painful epiphanies by means of which Marion learns hard lessons about her father, South Africa, Brenda and herself.
Stylistically nuanced and psychologically astute, this tight, dense novel gives complex history a human face.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59558-047-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2006
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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