Slow-paced and heavy going at times but well worth reading for its profound and unsentimental exploration of the grieving...
McFarland (The Music Room, 1990; A Face at the Window, 1997, etc.) plunges the reader into the maelstrom of grief that arises in the aftermath of the random murder of a college professor.
Malcolm Vaughn is shot to death by a stranger on a suburban Boston street one night while his wife Sarah and eight-year-old son Harry look on. The killer gets away and, despite diligent police work, is never caught. From the hospital emergency room, Sarah calls Malcolm’s best friend, a black Vietnam vet named Deckard Jones, whose checkered past initially causes suspicion to turn toward him and Sarah. But this is not a crime novel, and the scenes of police investigation and media exploitation feel forced. McFarland’s real subject is grief, the deep and wide swath it cuts across his characters’ lives, and the minute gradations of anxiety, anger, desperation, and guilt each experiences. The point of view shifts repeatedly, as if McFarland doesn’t want us to miss a second of anyone’s ordeal. Racked with self-blame and despair that takes the form of literal back pain, Sarah is both unable to work and unable to mother her son. As a result, her emotional paralysis forces Harry into an unnatural stoicism despite grotesque nightmares and an onslaught of secret bedwetting. Deckard’s friendship with the Vaughns, especially with Harry, is intense (though the connection through Malcolm, explained late in the story, remains a contrivance), but his ability to offer real support is thwarted by his own crisis of memory activated by Malcolm’s death. Deckard and Sara’s relationship is wonderfully complex, platonic yet laden with misunderstandings born of well-meaning affection as Sarah gropes toward “a bearable future.”
Slow-paced and heavy going at times but well worth reading for its profound and unsentimental exploration of the grieving process.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6608-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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
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Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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