A highly readable novel of courtroom and interpersonal drama.
In Sattler’s (Dog Days, 2013) courtroom drama, a veteran public defender revisits an old case as she faces the end of her career.
Anne Levy must decide whether to resign or be fired after two decades working as a public defender in Tucson, Arizona. The immediate cause of her downfall is a personality conflict with a recently arrived, by-the-book boss, but it quickly becomes clear that Anne also has a number of personal and professional secrets. Sattler uses frequent flashbacks to show Anne’s neurological disorder, her many failed relationships, and the case that nearly brought an end to her career. Despite Anne’s prickly, often abrupt attitude toward other people in her life, she’s an engaging character as she grows to accept her humanity without ever losing her edge. The author also vividly draws the supporting characters, including Gina, Anne’s secretary and staunchest ally; and Brian, who broke up with Anne when she always put her work first, but remains a reliable, platonic friend. The descriptions of the jails, courtrooms and public defender’s office are also strong, leaving readers smelling the stale coffee and fearing the short-tempered judge, just as the characters do. It’s sometimes difficult to tell when the narrative moves between a flashback and the present, and these transitions could have been more polished. But Sattler is skilled at dialogue, effectively using it to develop the characters: “Look Alberto, I’m not your social director. I’m here to help with your case,” Anne tells a new client; in another exchange, her advice is: “If you’re going to hide out in Mexico to avoid trial, stay there.” The end result is an enjoyable, realistic depiction of one woman’s midlife reassessment of herself and her choices.
A highly readable novel of courtroom and interpersonal drama.Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1496026170
Page Count: 208
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2014
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
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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