In Weissman’s poignant first novel, three adult sisters and their ailing mother struggle to reconcile their often divergent points of view.
The oldest Hoffman sister, Barbara, tries to re-establish her identity now that her children are grown and out of the house, while the middle sister, Rhonda, a single mother, raises two teenage boys—one of whom is headed down a potentially dangerous path. The youngest sibling, Ellen, lives her life as a single research scientist at the University of Iowa. In the book’s prologue, their 80-year-old mother, Rae, attempts to complete the basic tasks of getting out of the house and driving. Readers later learn that Rae suffers from “constricted capillary disease,” which causes her to experience dementia. When she gets into a car accident, she and her daughters are finally forced to confront her declining health and failing memory. Weissman subtly portrays how Rae’s deterioration affects all the sisters—in their individual lives and in their relationship to one another. When Rhonda takes Rae to live with her in Arizona, it raises the emotional stakes; Barbara and Ellen are concerned that Rhonda will take advantage of their mother financially, and Rhonda, in turn, is annoyed by her sisters’ mistrust as she becomes their mother’s primary caretaker. As Rae’s health declines, the three sisters keep circling one another in their efforts to communicate. At one point, Rae thinks, “The girls are angry with each other. I wonder why this time. I hoped they would get closer when they grew up, but it didn’t happen.” Toward the end of the novel, Rhonda wonders “whether our bond is strong enough to endure the loss of Mom, the glue.” Throughout, the sisters evolve as they find love, relocate and take care of their own families. Weissman’s direct, unsentimental prose provides each woman with a compelling, authentic perspective. She also deftly captures the mixture of denial and grief that parents and children feel when their roles are reversed.
An important, gripping story about facing change with curiosity, fear, love and, ultimately, acceptance.Pub Date: April 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482543148
Page Count: 376
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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