A first novel by storywriter Pierce (When Things Get Back to Normal, 1987) travels the same Carolinian terrain as the much more elegant work of Kaye Gibbons; thematically, it bears a lot in common with Robert Clark's novel, In the Deep Midwinter (1996), which also culminates in an illegal abortion during the Eisenhower years. By comparison, though, Pierce's relentlessly drab fiction drags. Until the startlingly upbeat conclusion, the author paints a rather depressing portrait of Hope Mills, N.C., as a class- stratified, oppressive mill town, with little room for social mobility, an innate prejudice toward blacks and foreigners, and a patriarchal attitude concerning women. The double standard figures prominently in the story, with horny men constantly on the prowl, and girls doomed to succumb to their blandishments. Tollie Ramsey, 15 and confused, hopes to escape the dead-end of ``mill rat'' life, but everything seems stacked against her. She discovers her illegitimacy; she gets knocked up by a Puerto Rican soldier from the local base; her stepfather becomes an alcoholic; and her mother is apparently determined to kill herself. Janice Ramsey, herself a woman who once dreamed of better things, not only settled for the first man who would be a daddy to her little girl, but she escaped Milltown only to return after her infant son died of crib death. Tollie's simple dreams of ``home-cooked food [and] an easy home life'' contrast with those of her best friend, Lily Jones, a sassy girl who hopes that by sleeping with a local d.j. she might eventually conquer Hollywood. Tollie finally seeks out the local voodoo-abortionist, an exceedingly wise black man who serves as her advisor and confessor. Perhaps, Tollie muses, life was just about ``plain old sin and redemption.'' Though Pierce isn't quite sure. It's hard not to think of Gibbons's suggestive, economic style and her subtle feminism when slogging through Pierce's relatively artless complaints against small-town life in another era.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-916366-82-0
Page Count: 311
Publisher: Pushcart
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
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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