It’s a sweet story, and it builds inevitably to a happy ending.
A cute romantic comedy featuring two male buddies who are obsessive-compulsive germophobes and the female Ph.D. student who helps ease at least one of them into a more conventionally normal life.
Imagine one of those road movies starring a younger Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, and then cross it with Rain Man, and you’ll have some idea of the tone of this debut novel by Westbury. His biography identifies him as “a cognitive neuropsychologist...[whose] work focuses on understanding the functional structure of language processing and the neurological underpinnings of psychotherapy.” Fear not: The doctor doesn't let the science get in the way of an engaging story, though it will inspire many readers to rethink their conceptions of mental disorders. Narrator Isaac is a former psych major who's dealing with the death of his mother and the money he's inherited. In group therapy, he develops a special affinity with Greg, who has a master’s degree in art history. Beyond the obligatory hand-washing that bonds them, Isaac’s routine includes visiting museums, and he becomes fixated on Marcel Duchamp, to whom Greg (whose major quirk is a thing for spoons) has introduced him. Though Isaac is inordinately careful not to touch anything or anyone on these museum visits, he becomes involved with the irresistibly attractive Kelly, a Japanese-Canadian Ph.D. student who's writing her thesis on the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac (which serves as a recurring thematic motif). The Duchamp piece from which the novel takes its title incorporates a chocolate grinder, which Isaac obsesses over possessing for himself. The three friends rent a Winnebago, which Kelly alone can drive, and make their way from Boston to Philadelphia to fulfill Isaac’s quest, talking a lot and opening the two men to experiences beyond their comfort levels.
It’s a sweet story, and it builds inevitably to a happy ending.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61902-290-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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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