An intriguing, addictive peek at the early 20th century with two strong female protagonists.
This first installment of a historical fiction trilogy traces the fortunes of four close friends who meet in Paris in 1900.
In the winter of 1966, Isabelle Lavigne, a 26-year-old French reporter, arrives on Blackwater Island in Maryland. She is there to learn the truth about the mysterious drowning of her grandmother Suzanne de Lamothe in 1919. She is seeking answers from Suzanne’s best friend, American artist Jennie Latmore. For Jennie, now 82 years old, reliving the past is traumatic, and she refuses to answer Isabelle’s questions—until the young woman shows her a damning little red book and several photographs found in her mother’s trunk. Jennie relents: “To understand…You must know it all from the beginning, as I lived it and as it was told to me.” The narrative then jumps back to 1900, and an enthusiastic 16-year-old Jennie arrives in Paris to begin her tenure as assistant governess for the children of the new American ambassador to France. Her roommate in the servants’ quarters is the equally young Suzanne, a French scullery maid. Despite a confrontational start, the two become fast friends. When the ambassador holds a dinner party, Jennie and Suzanne watch from the second-floor landing, catching the eyes of two handsome, fun-loving guests, French painter Geste D’Arcourt and British sculptor Charlie Clark. Through the complicated relationships of these four protagonists—and the forces that send them, reluctantly, in different directions—Peake (Arbutus Halethorpe and the Elevator Murders, 2018, etc.) vividly brings readers back to the first few years of the 20th century. From the Bohemian Left Bank in Paris (where readers meet Matisse and Picasso) to the great expanses of the American Southwest and the horrors of the Boxer Rebellion in China, the four friends struggle against societal mores, personal frailties, violence, and tragedy. The engrossing melodrama is marred only by some editing mishaps (“It made her she had a leg up on her”). Still, four well-developed characters, numerous supporting players, and meticulous lifestyle depictions should keep readers engaged.
An intriguing, addictive peek at the early 20th century with two strong female protagonists.Pub Date: March 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-980639-76-3
Page Count: 488
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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