There's a certain amount of post-trauma misery and marital conflict here (featured in Plain's Secrecy, p. 748, and Promises, 1996), but that's just one element in this cockle-warming yarn about the efforts of an elderly widow to round up—and shape up— her fragmented, warring family. Annette Byrne, 85, sends invitations to a snarling pack of descendants and their in-laws to join her on her estate in upper New York State. Among those not speaking or simply out-of-sync: sons Lewis and Gene, former partners, whose business was destroyed by corruption, for which each blames the other; Lewis's wife Daisy, whose cold manner antagonizes many; and Gene's nice daughter Ellen, who is married to Mark Sachs—none of the parents of the happy couple are thrilled with the Wasp/Jewish union. But a true tragedy blasted the marriage and lives of Lewis's daughter Cynthia and husband Andrew when their twin babies were killed in an accident. The terrible prolonged grief finally forced the couple apart— Andrew was driven to a seedy sexual episode, and Cynthia began divorce proceedings. Now all of Annette's edgy guests have arrived, loving or respecting Annette but appalled by her plan when they realize the identity of the other guests. Will Annette bring them together? Well, yes and no. Yes, the grand, roomy old house, the handsomely appointed table, and yummo food (a Plain specialty) offer the background to peace talks, but Annette is finally reduced to tears. A chance event, potentially tragic, along with a lecture from Annette's neighborhood friend Marion, does bring them together. Cynthia is the last holdout, but sweetness and light prevail. It's all set in a winter landscape, with sleet underlining the central drama, but by the end the emotional thermostat is up and good feeling is spread all around. A small, warming holiday gift for Plain fans. (Literary Guild main selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-31980-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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