A witty, thoroughly likable tale.
Interested in a group of midwestern housewives who make a killing in the stock market? If you want the real story, refer to the now-famous Beardstown Ladies, but if you want a slightly slapstick version, point yourself in the direction of this first novel about the wholly fictional Mostly Methodist Club.
Larksdale, Minnesota, is very cold in the winter. As that’s the town’s only defining feature, a group of women form the Mostly Methodist Club to do charitable works, share baked goods, and generally stave off boredom. When one member comes to their weekly meeting frightened at newly published statistics on the grim financial prospects of retired women, the group is transformed into the Larksdale Ladies Independence Club. The Ladies have two things in their favor: it's the beginning of the booming 1980s, and they have a young college student in their midst. Pink-haired Skye, home on probation and brought to the meetings in the custody of Mary, hardly fits the group demographic, but her vast knowledge of the computer industry proves far more valuable than the $1,500 buy-in stake. The women begin by trolling the mall and buying stakes in small chain-stores they think will make it big, then they move on to investing in this mysterious thing called software—in this case, Microsoft. Of course they become wildly rich, and readers will certainly enjoy seeing small-town gals make good, but the real pleasure here comes from the snappy narration of Sophia, daughter to one of the Ladies and gossipy chronicler of matters both financial and personal. When the local factory shuts down, the Ladies really test their mettle and try to save the future of their town.
A witty, thoroughly likable tale.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-425-17823-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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