A lucid, gratifying novel with appeal for both LGBT readers and anyone interested in a particularly pivotal slice of San...
History and melodrama combine in this brisk novel centered on the murder of gay rights political advocate Harvey Milk.
Charles, a poet and English professor at the University of Montana, dramatically addresses an important era in San Francisco history with this tale of equality and sexual liberation. At the helm of his novel is Christopher Mann, a closeted gay man who moves to San Francisco in 1978 to begin law school after months of career and personal indecisiveness. Though he chalks up his clandestine gay tendencies to “experimentation, like dropping acid or parachuting,” Mann’s burgeoning homosexuality continues to simmer throughout law school against a revolutionary backdrop of changing societal mores. Impressively drawn supporting characters march in, adding flair and personality to Charles’ companionable narrative. Among them are Mann’s new best buddy, Jim Reilly; Gordo, a Hispanic homeless man with a secret history; Mexican-American student and Jim’s fiancee, Laura Esquival; and Wendy, another first-year student, who ends up interning for a legislator and becomes knee-deep in the historic anti–gay-teacher initiative, Proposition 6. Personal opinion heats up Mann’s torturous law classes and his personal life, a confused space he still hasn’t worked out while sleeping with Wendy. Ultimately, what drive the novel are the author’s impressive exploration of Mann’s internal struggle with his orientation, his parents’ generational divide, and the region’s embroilment in the prickly sexual politics of the late 1970s. Atmospheric and historically accurate, Charles’ memorable set pieces include Mann’s fidgety first time in a gay bar and a forbidden beachfront tryst with Jim, which ultimately sabotages his engagement. Perhaps most compelling is the pivotal era in which the novel is set, a time when Harvey Milk became the first openly gay Bay Area elected official while homophobic opponents such as Anita Bryant, Jim Briggs, and city supervisor Dan White staunchly advocated public intolerance. Charles expertly weaves his characters into the era’s drama while compassionately addressing issues such as coming out, bigotry, and the struggle for equality.
A lucid, gratifying novel with appeal for both LGBT readers and anyone interested in a particularly pivotal slice of San Francisco history.Pub Date: April 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1619290860
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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