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THE BLUESTOCKING

Delman's second foray into the mid-19th century (Ain't Goin' to Glory, 1991) is a period/courtroom hybrid—an Age of Presumed Innocence based on the scandalous 1851 case in which America's foremost tragedian and his wife launched countersuits for divorce, each accusing the other of adultery. The principals in the case would have gladdened the hearts of the tabloids. Edwin Forrest, already famous for his magnetic performances and his thespian high-handedness, had recently achieved notoriety of a different kind when a demonstration against Forrest's British rival William Macready staged by the Friends of Forrest, a group of supporters headed by the legendary publicist Ned Buntline, left 22 dead outside the Astor Theater. Catherine Sinclair Forrest, his British wife, was almost equally notorious in more select circles for her advanced views, which saw marriage as economic enslavement and monogamy as unnatural. The two opposing attorneys were Charles O'Conor, who would go on to defend Jefferson Davis and prosecute Boss Tweed, and John Van Buren, son of the former President. And the haplessly stiff-necked crowd of luminaries caught in the crossfire ran the gamut from the late actress Josephine Clifton (who may have enjoyed a liaison with Forrest eight years ago) to Nathaniel Parker Willis, New York's leading magazine editor (publicly accused by the outraged husband as ``the seducer of Catherine Forrest''). In order to reach a verdict, the jury was asked to consider whether Forrest's repeated visits to a house of ill-repute, or his wife's receiving a letter identifying her with the indomitably chaste heroine of a George Sand novel (gasp!), constituted more incriminating behavior. The high-profile players, and the determination of the court to maintain decorum while recording scabrous accusations, make the court proceedings as fascinating as most fictional murder trials. Only in the conventional offstage flourishes—pages from Catherine's diary, the romance of a journalist with one of Catherine's supporters—does Delman disappoint.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 1994

ISBN: 0-312-10432-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1993

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A LITTLE LIFE

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

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

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

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