An engaging thriller with plenty of humor, good characterization, and a memorable villain, even if each has moments of...
A homicidal maniac frames a wealthy beach bum for murder in retribution for an old sin in this debut novel.
Likable surfer Danny Teakwell won $5 million in the lottery, allowing him to pursue an aimless, self-destructive lifestyle. It’s appropriate for a guy who’s never gotten over youthful tragedies. In high school, for example, he and his friends, Troy Stoddelmeyer and John Mangrum, were involved in a shameful incident that cost him his relationship with the love of his life, Sari Hunter. But a reunion with her is at hand, giving him hope that he can get a second chance. Unfortunately, an insane killer, Jaxon Kempler, also is planning to attend; he seeks revenge for what Teakwell and his friends did 20 years ago, through a combination of murder and frame-ups. Box does a great job with Teakwell’s back story, plausibly developing his sweet relationship with Hunter and leaving readers wanting to find out what ruined their love. The unexpected answer makes Teakwell seem sympathetic and flawed. Kempler is also very well-drawn, as the author uses darkly comic, third-person narration to enter his very disturbed mind; one early killing, for example, is “[j]ust something he had to do, like eating pancakes on days of the month divisible by three.” But as good as the characterization and gleeful malice are, they occasionally falter. One of Kempler’s acts, in particular, may be too gruesome for some readers. Also, Mangrum’s reasons for being involved are a stretch, as are Kempler’s motives. Although the cast of oddballs is wacky Floridian fun for the most part, a subplot about Teakwell’s attorney’s problems seems unnecessary, and it devolves into a hokey bit of comic violence. However, these flaws shouldn’t prevent audiences from enjoying this beach read.
An engaging thriller with plenty of humor, good characterization, and a memorable villain, even if each has moments of weakness.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0692371350
Page Count: 462
Publisher: Friction Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2015
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
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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