A beautiful but challengingly complex tale of the ramifications of history.
In this dramatic novel haunted by the Holocaust, a man stumbles upon an old collection of letters that raise provocative questions about his grandfather’s death.
Seattle engineer Avi Arutiyan’s uncle Sarkis dies and leaves him his house in Hermosa Beach, California—a small, dilapidated structure that originally belonged to Avi’s grandfather, Aram. There, Avi discovers a valise filled with correspondence addressed to Aram from David Levy, a survivor of the Holocaust who was imprisoned at Auschwitz. Aram was apparently murdered in Germany in 1965, during a burglary, but the case was never officially solved. Levy cryptically refers to acquiring “military supplies,” but it’s unclear for what purpose. Avi decides to investigate, hungry to understand his hidden family history. He pleads for answers from his mother: “This family’s been full of secrets,” Avi says. “I don’t know who my grandfather was, or my father, or my uncle, or even my brother. They are all gone, and I don’t have anyone to ask but you.” Bell (The Metronome, 2014) artfully weaves an intricate plot that’s so labyrinthine it flirts with convolution, showing one family’s connections to both the Holocaust and the 1915 Armenian genocide. The text jumps back and forth in time from Avi’s contemporary investigation to the early 1960s, when Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s war crimes trial stirred painful memories for many people, including Aram and David. Bell tells the story kaleidoscopically, shifting the narrative from one character’s perspective to another, creating a kind of literary panopticon. Avi’s background is Armenian and Jewish, but he doesn’t feel particularly connected to either identity, and Bell poignantly depicts the character’s alienation as he learns more about his family’s past; later, for example, it’s revealed that Avi’s half brother, Armenian freedom fighter Tigran, apparently died while wiring a bomb. Throughout, Bell masterfully combines his mystery story with an unflinching look at the 20th century’s bleakest tragedies.
A beautiful but challengingly complex tale of the ramifications of history.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72662-689-7
Page Count: 452
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2018
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
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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