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THE MIDNIGHT PARTNER

Ultra-busy exposÇ of lurid goings-on in suburbia, from the author of Blind Prophet (1983), as well as several paperback suspense novels. When Jack Murphy takes a fatal dive into his drained Long Island swimming pool, Phillie Liebowitz, his screenwriting partner, doesn't believe it was a suicide. (After all, womanizing Jack had just had hair implants.) So Phillie does some detective work. He raids Jack's computer and finds musings like ``Sex dominates my life.'' He also lunches with racy Judy, one of Jack's former lovers, who produces more heavy-breathing scribblings, these detailing Jack's passionate attachment to an S&M ``family.'' But then Judy is brutally murdered, and Phillie's a prime suspect. Dogged in his effort to get inside Jack's life, Phillie goes to Manhattan's Whips and Chains club and spends a night of bliss whipping a pert paid escort named Cee, who knew Jack. Cee gives Phillie clues that help him discover the nefarious plot that drove his partner to suicide. After a Madison Square Garden showdown in which Phillie runs over some second-string bad guys with a Zamboni, he limps home to Long Island to discover that the real villain is holding his family hostage. More than a simple whodunit, Davis's first attempt at noncategory fiction is a tawdry field-day of would-be-titillating mayhem. Sensationalist embellishments and subplots include a night out with a benevolent biker gang, multiple attacks on Phillie's life, a videotape with a deadly secret, a false HIV diagnosis, a multimillion-dollar will with anti-suicide provisions, Phillie's constant agonizing over his troubled relationship with his unfaithful wife, and a 15-minute session with a psychiatrist in which our hero gets to the roots of middle-aged angst. Davis actually has an earnest intentionto contrast the lure of life on the wild side with the rewards of long-term marriagebut this inquiry gets drowned out by the cacophonous clanks of unoiled plot machinery. (First printing of 30,000; Literary Guild alternate selection)

Pub Date: July 17, 1995

ISBN: 0-553-09690-7

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Bantam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 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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TELL ME LIES

There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.

Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."

Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.

There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.

Pub Date: June 12, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018

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