An affecting, if somewhat disorderly, tale of dislocation.
In Almohammad’s debut novel, a Syrian academic relocates to Southeast Asia and encounters seemingly bottomless reserves of racism and vitriol among its citizenry.
When Adam leaves Syria to pursue graduate studies in psychology in Malaysia, he experiences multiple incidents of febrile prejudice and ignorance, quickly learning that a “tanned Arab infidel” is about as much of a social pariah as one can be in the island country. The abuse he suffers is astonishing; one professor even asks him if he belongs to the Islamic State group. Women on the brink of falling in love with him seem tortured by his ethnic background, and fellow Arabs astound him with their arrant homophobia, disdain for Jews, and blinkered adherence to ersatz scientific studies that support their narrow-mindedness. He struggles to make ends meet as he’s denied any decent opportunities for employment, and he’s wounded by reports of his native country’s depredations. At the heart of the book, Almohammad’s protagonist wrestles with two parallel but contradictory ideas: first, his desire to be a global citizen is constantly stymied by the world’s rejection of his peaceable assimilation; second, his utter disgust, sometimes bordering on misanthropy, often undermines his desire to maintain a skeptical distance from rigid conviction. Consider the following aside, discussing a devout follower of God: “For me, this delusional douchebag is everything that is wrong with us and is precisely what I don’t want to be. Yet, I am not an atheist preacher....My core philosophy is that I might be wrong.” The story here is not without hope; despite Adam’s inability to fully find a home, he does find love and friends and successfully pursues his intellectual ambition. Almohammad, like Adam, is also a Syrian and a research fellow in psychology, and this fictional memoir seems clearly inspired by these autobiographical elements. The narration throughout is mercurial—sometimes lightheartedly hilarious, sometimes grimly brutal—which can be delightfully entertaining and also disjunctive. The work as a whole lacks a clear structure, so it often reads like a series of loosely assembled anecdotes, recounted conversations, and philosophical meditations. This couldn’t be a timelier book, though, and its power derives from the daring, uncompromising way it tells the truth about a world in danger of being lost to chaos.
An affecting, if somewhat disorderly, tale of dislocation.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9974815-0-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2016
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
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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