A sad, soulful, and revelatory story about a deeply troubled nation in transition.
A haunting debut novel about two young women in Mumbai that brings the brutal realities of modern India into focus.
Trasi cleverly divides her tale into two narratives: in one that begins in 1986, readers follow young Mukta, the child of a prostitute, who seems doomed to eventually work in the sex trade herself. Thanks to her mother’s efforts, however, she instead becomes a foster child in an upper-class household. There, she meets Tara, a spirited young woman who’s never known poverty. The second narrative flashes forward to Tara as an adult in 2004, living in Los Angeles. She returns to India in order to find Mukta, who had been kidnapped 11 years earlier. Although the tandem timelines and alternating points of view could have potentially caused confusion, Trasi capably steers readers through each scene, developing both plotlines until they finally converge. For readers unfamiliar with the most populous city in India, the prose vividly re-creates everyday life there, but the most powerful aspect of Trasi’s book is its prince-and-the-pauper motif: the disparity between rich and poor is evident from the first chapters, and Mukta often seems resigned to a terrible fate, even after five years of comfort and safety in Tara’s family’s home. The descriptions and dialogue are rich and believable, particularly when Trasi writes from a child’s perspective (“my thoughts would race along with the wind, crossing our village, whistling through mountains, between boulders and rocks, ruffling the leaves on trees, flying with the birds”). The story also takes on difficult subject matter, such as child abuse, HIV, and early mortality, with unflinching seriousness. Even Tara’s interactions with the police demonstrate how chronic disorganization plagues Indian society, allowing countless youths to vanish into bordellos. The two main characters serve as symbols of the entire caste system, and Mukta’s memory of her dreary village consistently reminds readers how rigid and prosaic many ancient traditions can be. Although both main characters must contend with destiny—a recurring concept—the story makes clear that there may still be hope for their children. The story’s major twist is fairly predictable, and the finale somewhat melodramatic, but for readers familiar with the spiritual significance of the Ganges River, the final pages may still provoke tears.
A sad, soulful, and revelatory story about a deeply troubled nation in transition.Pub Date: March 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0986155604
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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