A passionate, sometimes-brutal tale of violence begetting violence.
Members of an isolated Alaskan community make a stand against those who seem intent on seizing their land in Hoover’s debut thriller.
Augustin Stark envisioned the Homestead, which he founded, as an escape from modern society—a free community with no internet or phone service and little contact with the larger world. When he spots an unmarked helicopter passing by, it puts him on edge. While trekking to the nearest town, Harkstaff, for supplies, he and fellow Homesteaders find a wrecked SUV and one survivor, Franklin Summerset. He’s a senior vice president at Lockstone Oil who makes an offer to buy the Homestead land, but Stark assures him that it’s not for sale. However, Lockstone’s CEO then uses his Washington, D.C., connections to make a claim of eminent domain, aiming to simply take the land. Stark, a habitually armed former Marine, responds with threats and, later, an explosion only to be arrested later by FBI agents accusing him of domestic terrorism. Stark’s pal Andrew Russo wants to flee, but other Homesteaders, who are predominantly ex-Marines, plan to free Stark from federal confinement. As the feds prepare to raid the Homestead, everyone braces themselves for a bloody conflict; meanwhile, Stark suspects that some of the agents may not actually be with the FBI. Hoover develops tension by shrouding characters in ambivalence: Stark has a secret that isn’t immediately revealed; authorities are untrustworthy; and there’s betrayal lurking at the Homestead that’s unrelated to the main plot. Accordingly, readers may have trouble sympathizing with anyone, but the author wisely doesn’t champion either side. As the mystery plays out, answers gradually come to light, including who may be behind the attack against the Homestead. The action scenes, meanwhile, are more unsettling than exciting: “The sporadic popping of handguns was offset by the methodic boom of a not-too-distant high-powered rifle.” It’s a grim experience, overall, but it’s one that refuses to be disregarded or easily forgotten, particularly given its jaw-dropping ending.
A passionate, sometimes-brutal tale of violence begetting violence.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9994074-7-9
Page Count: 300
Publisher: BlackPit Publishing Group
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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
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