Great stuff for hard-core ironside sailors. Woozy sailing types will drift off.
The Battle of Jutland provides opening action in a 20th-century British naval series that promises to be long on war and short on mushy stuff.
First published in the UK in 1976 and apparently just now brought over the Atlantic to capitalize on the O’Brian phenomenon, this excellent oil-powered sea story should not be compared to the wonderful windblown wanderings of Aubrey and Maturin. The author, son of a naval family and himself a WWII veteran, devotes minimal time to the musings of the Everard family who will see the series on. And quite rightly. There’s no time to play the cello or read philosophy when the Kaiser’s Grand Fleet is steaming out of Wilhelmshaven, heading straight at you and the rest of the flotilla assembled by the brilliant (now retired) Admiral Jacky Fisher. Series hero Nicholas Everard has just been transferred from the thick political atmosphere of a battleship, where he’s blotted his copybook, to the small, no-nonsense world of the His Majesty’s destroyer Lanyard. The transfer was thanks to a bit of rank-pulling by Nick’s highly capable Uncle Hugh, captain of the battleship HMS Nile. Nick’s high-strung and mostly unpleasant older brother David, heir to the baronetcy and Dad’s favorite, is aboard the cruiser Bantry. All three Everard vessels have the good (if you’re a career man) fortune, after months of feints and false alarms, to be in on the action in what will turn out to be the most important naval battle of the Great War. The action here is seen only from the British side, but Fullerton does a good job of laying out the tactics without drowning the reader in seas of detail as two armadas clash in the choppy waters east of Scotland. There is a bit of nonsense on shore involving Nick and David’s pretty young stepmother, for whom Uncle Hugh carries a torch, but it’s quickly back to sea and The War.
Great stuff for hard-core ironside sailors. Woozy sailing types will drift off.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56947-259-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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