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CONCEPCION AND THE BABY BROKERS

Stories of strength and ethical quandary, but inconsistently rendered.

A collection of stories about hard choices borne of desperation and the stark delineations between classes in both Guatemala and the United States.

Clearman (Todos Santos, 2010, etc.) opens her collection with the novella A Cup of Tears, an ethically fraught adoption tale, alternating among the perspectives of 15-year-old Concepción, wet nurse to a pair of twins; Prudencia, a baby contractor who acquires the toddlers; Doña Merced, who facilitates their adoption; and two American adoptive parents. For all, “this was a fight to survive,” Clearman writes. Concepción wants to escape north. Prudencia’s call to betray her own ethics comes as much from being “up against the knife” of the bill for her mother’s impending surgery as it does from carrying a metaphorical knife against her father and the shame of incest. Love, for Clearman’s characters, is dangerous and often wrong; in A Cup of Tears, particularly, babies are paradoxically the detritus of forbidden union and the emblems of audacious hope. Stories like “The Race” as well as stories like “Saints and Sinners” illustrate the polarity of life in Guatemala and the U.S. Guatemala represents tradition but also poverty and corruption. In America lies opportunity but instability. When Fausto Mendoza Ramirez returns home to prove himself in a grueling race, he must confront his father and his family legacy. Though characters in Clearman’s stories are genetically related, the collection is inconsistent in its ethical weight. The author offers the same photographic eye and acute vision of Guatemalan culture throughout, but the novella’s arresting implications are not echoed in stories like “Turista” or “Fathers and Sons.” Though these repeat the refrain that “the North was taking all our sons,” there is less at stake for these stories' characters, and the stories suffer for lack of the characteristic unease that drives A Cup of Tears.

Stories of strength and ethical quandary, but inconsistently rendered.

Pub Date: March 15, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-9968384-5-0

Page Count: 236

Publisher: Rain Mountain Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017

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TELL ME LIES

There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.

Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."

Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.

There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.

Pub Date: June 12, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018

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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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