Fans of contemporary horror-thrillers will be deeply satisfied by this latest Nightscape outing.
A South Pacific thriller that mixes a good deal of Robert Louis Stevenson with a dash of H.P. Lovecraft.
Edwards’ (Nightscape: Cynopolis, 2015, etc.) third Nightscape novel opens with a desperate emergency—and it rarely slows down after that. Six passengers are enjoying a pleasure cruise aboard a luxury 58-foot cruising yacht near the Solomon Islands when sudden disaster strikes: their anchor comes loose during the night and their yacht strikes a coral reef, fatally gashing the hull. Everyone is forced to abandon ship and swim in the darkness to the nearest atoll. The six castaways are 26-year-old Atlanta Journal-Constitution journalist Ridge Dantley; his fiancee, Mira; his old friend and former schoolmate at Choate, Aaron; U.S. Sen. Bryant Neeland of Georgia; his chief of staff, Kenny; and Kenny’s latest “flirtation,” Boston Brahmin Paige. They all (barely) make it to the atoll—except for Aaron, who disappears into the night. A grieving Ridge decides to swim to a much bigger island in the distance in hopes of finding a settlement or some fresh water. Instead, he finds a nightmare: an outlaw camp run by a sadistic tyrant named Tarrant who forces his own men, the native Melanesians, and now Ridge, to mine for gold. But from Ridge, he wants one other task: editing a strange work of philosophy that Tarrant’s been writing. Edwards very skillfully intersperses tense action scenes among engaging elaborations of his characters—most interestingly, the aforementioned disillusioned senator, who thinks “with growing vehemence” about the decay of the American dream. The prose can be melodramatic at times, as in this line, during the boating mishap: “From his perspective, high above the water, his friends appeared the hapless victims of some vast Manichean struggle.” However, the pacing is pitch-perfect throughout, and the supernatural elements that reveal themselves later on in the story are smoothly integrated. Also, new readers need not read the earlier volumes in the series to enjoy this one.
Fans of contemporary horror-thrillers will be deeply satisfied by this latest Nightscape outing.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9897487-4-2
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Imperiad Entertainment
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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