An American success story that deftly emphasizes the country’s multicultural heritage.
In this debut novel, a Croatian immigrant forges a life for himself at the start of the 20th century.
When 16-year-old Martin Petrovich leaves his hometown of Dubrovnik on a ship bound for the United States, he knows that he may never see his parents and siblings again. An uncle he has never met is waiting to give him a job in San Francisco. Then Martin can send money home to his relatives. Under his uncle’s tutelage and full of his own ambition, Martin resolves to work hard and learn everything he can in hopes of establishing a business of his own. Yet soon the devastating earthquake of 1906 brings the city to its knees, destroying buildings and taking the lives of many loved ones. In the aftermath, Martin settles in Watsonville, a California town that holds fewer painful memories. Over the course of the novel’s ambitious scope, King neatly summarizes many important political and cultural moments of the time. Martin is affable and honorable, verging on excessively flawless. During his long and rich life, readers see him pour his soul into opening a restaurant, struggle with the law during Prohibition, serve as a naval convoy escort during World War I, and watch his own sons enlist in World War II. A special virtue of the story is the author’s focus on the diversity of the Watsonville population and the changing sentiments of the American public toward specific nationalities. In addition to the large band of Croatian American characters the protagonist befriends, standouts in the cast include Ken Nakamura, a Japanese American community leader whose family is placed in an internment camp, and Hector Lopez, a Mexican laborer who helps Martin maintain Ken’s farm in his absence. Through these relationships, King and her players advocate for universal kindness and acceptance of marginalized groups. A slogan created to unite the town summarizes Martin’s own outlook best: “Strength in diversity. Unity in cooperation.” Although the writing occasionally sounds very similar to a history textbook, Martin’s tale is full of perseverance, integrity, and humanity.
An American success story that deftly emphasizes the country’s multicultural heritage.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73353-690-5
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Cypress Point Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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