Troubled romance that knows the messiness of real life.
Hawkins’ (Dance for a Dead Princess, 2013) tale of addictive love is a roller coaster of emotion.
Jumping between the past and present, Hawkins spins the story of Karen Moon and her ill-advised love, Stan Benedict. Their relationship begins in 1994. Karen is a talented attorney who works all the time, though she hates her job at a top law firm in San Diego. Stan is a jazz musician who manages to catch Karen’s eye, distract her from work, and inadvertently win her heart. Stan repeatedly warns Karen he’s bad for her, a supposition his actions only support. Karen—who now, based on Stan’s recommendation, once again goes by Carrie Moon—is convinced her love can change him, and she doggedly pursues Stan in an attempt to prove he is worthy of love. Ultimately, their relationship ends in tragedy, and Stan leaves her in horrific fashion. More than a decade later, Carrie is now the Honorable Judge Karen Morgan. Though she’s married to a successful trial attorney and surrounded by tangible signs of their wealth and success, she is dreadfully unhappy. Her marriage resembles a corporate merger, her job fails to satisfy her, she still misses music, and she can’t seem to get over Stan. When Stan suddenly reappears in her life, Karen finds herself reliving their past and considering a future together. Hawkins presents a study of love’s all-consuming power, both good and bad. While it opens Carrie up to new possibilities, it often blinds her to the true nature of Stan’s personality. Hawkins does an admirable job painting Stan as a likable jerk. He’s the selfish liar, philanderer, and gambler you want to succeed. Alternately, Karen is beautiful, smart, driven, and incredibly understanding; the couple is such a stark contrast that it tests the bounds of believability to imagine them together. Hawkins’ intriguing descriptions of the emotion underlying Stan’s music provide a window into his troubled soul. Meanwhile, Karen’s own journey of self-discovery is equally if not more compelling. The transition from Carrie to Karen (and perhaps back again) is relatable and honest.
Troubled romance that knows the messiness of real life.Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988934733
Page Count: 415
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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