This richly rendered but unfocused novel needs more action and less art history to keep readers intrigued.
A coveted painting of the Immaculate Conception connects the lives of women past and present in Velástegui’s ambitious debut novel.
Widowed art collector and wealthy socialite Paloma Zubiondo is ensconced in her Laguna Beach, Calif., home when she receives a mysterious call from a woman claiming to be held captive and begging for the return of a stolen painting of the Immaculate Conception. The caller triggers memories of Paloma’s childhood in Quito, Ecuador, and sends Paloma on a quest to discover whether or not she possesses this stolen painting by the artist Isabel Santiago. This meticulously researched historical novel alternates between Paloma’s art investigations and the lives of historical figures from centuries past, all connected by paintings of the Virgin Mary. One such chapter follows 17th-century Ecuadorian artist Isabel Santiago as she struggles to overcome the shadow of her father, the celebrated painter Miguel de Santiago. The novel includes many charming minor characters, such as Isabel’s devoted servant Shining Star, who struggles with the inequities of a class-based society that labels her a “little mongrel.” In another engaging chapter, a proud widow tries to keep up appearances while her printing press flounders in 18th-century Mexico City. There are several potentially fruitful story lines—colonial tensions and class divisions, art forgery and human trafficking—but Velástegui does not fully flesh them out. Too much of the drama takes place offstage or via summary, leaving the narrative bogged down in exposition. While intriguing at the outset, the central mystery of Paloma’s Immaculate Conception painting becomes tangled in dangling plotlines and long passages on Spanish Colonial art. Nevertheless, the author shows a talent for period detail, sparkling dialogue and vivid characters that bring her story to life.
This richly rendered but unfocused novel needs more action and less art history to keep readers intrigued.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983745808
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Libros
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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