In Wall’s debut novel, a young man survives a hurricane and moves to Massachusetts to plot a new future for himself.
When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, Jim Scoresby refuses to evacuate and stays behind to look after his grandfather’s house. He does so in the company of his friend, elderly jazz musician Freddy Beasley. Right before the hurricane, Jim had a confrontation with his father, who feared that Jim, who’s nearing 30, would never amount to anything. After Katrina, Jim ends up moving to Boston, where he finds success selling investments at the firm of Henretty & Henretty. There, he comes to the attention of its chief executive, Commodore Walter Henretty, and even begins to date the boss’s daughter, Maureen. When Walter decides to put him in charge of his yacht brokerage business on Cape Cod, Jim jumps at the chance but finds that the spoiled Maureen is unhappy; she wants him to stay with her in Boston. All the while, Jim misses New Orleans and wonders if he’ll ever move back home or if he’ll make a new life for himself in New England. Things come to a head when Jim agrees to accompany Walter for a test drive of his recently overhauled schooner, and an encounter with a white squall leads to tragedy. Wall delivers a full-blooded, old-fashioned novel about love, ambition and money that’s reminiscent of the works of Richard Powell, Vance Bourjaily, James Gould Cozzens and other midcentury American authors. From Boston’s Beacon Hill to New Orleans’ Frenchman Street, the book does an excellent job of evoking a sense of place and contains any number of memorable scenes, particularly the two storms that bookend the story. Even though, as a character, Jim seems a little too good to be true, the author surrounds him with an engaging cast of New England types. Unfortunately, at over 400 pages, the narrative seems somewhat padded, and even the most patient readers will grow tired of its many digressions.
A novel with many positive attributes but not enough conflict to justify its length.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1938749209
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Violet Crown Publishers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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