A self-deprecating, self-aware—and engaging—postmodernist tale.
Smith (Under the Suns, 2014) tells the story of an aspiring author with the same name writing a book a lot like this metafictional novel.
Formerly suicidal Ches Smith is wandering the mall seeking inspiration for his novel when he sees an amusing bit of anti-corporate art—a mannequin dressed like a homeless person: “A fetid stench emanated from the display such that store employees held hankies over their noses at a distance....At the mannequin’s feet, a homemade sign suggested customers check out Macy’s new iBum line out back by the dumpsters.” Ches follows a trail of stickers to the food court, where he encounters the artist, Thalia Tanner, a formerly suicidal guerrilla marketer and singer in a punk-country band. After their brief meeting, Ches becomes obsessed with Thalia, sensing in her a kindred spirit, only to learn shortly afterward that she was shot to death later that day at that same mall. His psychiatrist suggests that Ches write about her as a means of dealing with his feelings. His effort is made infinitely easier when the ghost of Thalia—or at least Ches’ hallucination of her—begins appearing to him. She says that he shouldn’t write a novel about her but rather about his experiences with her, starting with their meeting at the mall. The book he writes, therefore, starts to sound very similar to the one that the audience is reading. As he attempts to find her killer, deal with her oddball family, and find his authorial voice, Ches’ quest becomes increasingly abnormal. And self-aware. And deadly. The prose of Smith (the author) perfectly captures the sardonic, nihilism-tinged voice of Smith (the character), whose every writerly affectation is eventually called out by someone he meets. “A writer writing about finding his voice?” scoffs a co-worker he asks to read the book. “Done to death, man. While you’re at it, why don’t you write about a Prohibition-era PI, or a zombie holocaust, or horny vampires?” While the humor and conceit may not be every reader’s cup of tea, the author manages to keep things intriguing and find an ending that satisfies.
A self-deprecating, self-aware—and engaging—postmodernist tale.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-942856-30-6
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Literary Wanderlust
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
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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