A family saga shines in its depiction of the oddities and inanities of real life and in its delving into the numerous...
A debut novel paints an intergenerational portrait of an Australian clan in crisis over one fateful day.
Set in the present day, the story focuses on the Saville family, living in a wealthy suburb north of Sydney. Roger, the patriarch, is an aggressive businessman set to make a profitable yet ethically unsound real estate deal against the reservations of his business partner, Lawrence Beck. One problem, though: Roger’s briefcase, holding some important documents, has vanished, and he must tackle the task of finding it while managing the many moving parts around his deal. Meanwhile his wife, Joanne, despite seemingly having it all, feels oddly empty, worried about the future though unsure of what exactly she should fear. Compounding this is the arrival of her father, the titular Albert Strange, who has come to reconnect with his daughter’s family and march with his 14-year-old granddaughter, Samantha, in the annual Anzac Day parade (“A bit like Independence Day in the States,” one character explains). It’s really more like Memorial Day: a remembrance of those who served in the military. Albert, a World War II veteran, left home when Joanne was young; she feels that time is running out to reconcile with her distant father. Willie, Joanne’s 17-year-old son who has not been home for months, starts his day in an unfamiliar apartment, trying to piece together the events of his drug-fueled night, and then ventures out into the city with two dubious friends. The narration alternates among the characters—Roger, Joanne, Lawrence, Albert, and Willie, mostly—and the storylines intersect and reflect upon one another in intriguing, thought-provoking ways. Canning’s characters are well-rounded and nuanced; although not always likable, they act realistically, and he constantly puts them in compelling situations. In addition to ace character work, the author inserts thoughtful digressions and conversations about war, memory, ethics, business, sexuality, and aging into his novel, making for an absorbing read with few slack moments. Canning’s only trip-ups occur when the action becomes too bogged down in business minutiae, but these are easy to overlook amid the overall quality of the book.
A family saga shines in its depiction of the oddities and inanities of real life and in its delving into the numerous concerns of each day.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-473-22130-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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