A short, fast-paced historical novel with well-developed characters and settings.
Moore’s debut drama, set in the years before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, tells of three German families who fall prey to the Stasi secret police.
In 1983, a Stasi agent pressures Rudi Kessler, a butcher barely making ends meet, to supply information on two childhood friends: civil servant Karl and post-office worker Helmut. Both of them are allegedly passing intelligence to the enemy via microdots, and they each subsequently vanish. Rudi’s son, Alex, meanwhile, joins the Stasi; Karl’s son, Paul, becomes paranoid that other people, including waiters, are listening to his conversations. Years after the 1990 German reunification, Paul learns the identity of the person responsible for reporting his father to the secret police. As it happens, it’s the same man who was blackmailed by a former Stasi officer into marrying Paul’s cousin, Helga, as part of an intricate plan to recover stolen diamonds. Moore’s novel is so rich in history and character detail that it’s exciting even without the Stasi subplot, as Alex helps his mother find safety in democratic Denmark; Paul weds Englishwoman Rachel and makes a new life in the UK; and Helga’s new family faces tragedy as she loses her husband. Alex is one of the book’s more unsavory characters but also the most captivating; he’s generally disliked by people he knows, which is sublimely manifested in his repulsive habit of constantly sniffing. In one highlight, a notoriously violent Stasi thug grabs Alex, who denies his identity—before immediately sniffing and giving the ruse away. Moore incorporates the historical backdrop effectively, particularly the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, which serves as a palpable turning point; characters’ lives change swiftly and drastically, particularly those of former Stasi members. The story’s final act takes place in 2009, near the event’s 20-year anniversary. The novel feels a bit rushed at the end, as Stasi officers scramble to get their mitts on the diamonds. However, the unforgettable climax involves a multitude of characters—and not everyone’s left standing by the time it’s over.
A short, fast-paced historical novel with well-developed characters and settings.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1491887332
Page Count: 182
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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