A novel entry into the world of teenage fantasy that ultimately unfolds into a truly epic saga.
From debut author Barr comes an urban-fantasy novel about an adolescent boy on the cusp of mysterious change and the strange town within which he seeks refuge.
As a young man in Chicago, Conor shares an apartment with his mother: “They weren’t well off, but they weren’t dirt poor either.” The boy is handy with a tin whistle and makes a little extra money playing in a local Irish bar as his mother slowly dies of cancer. One night, he meets a stranger who informs him that he, Conor, is one of the “Dark ones.” Without supplying any further details, the stranger then proceeds to bite Conor on the hand and vanish into the Chicago River. Afterward, a series of events, including the death of Conor’s mother and a letter from an obscure aunt, brings the boy to the small town of Tinker’s Grove, Wisconsin. Arriving with a severe fever, he’s soon whisked to the local monastery with the aid of friendly townspeople, who have a chocolate Labrador retriever named Troubles. As the man in charge of the monastery explains to the local physician, Brother Luke, “What ails this boy is beyond the power of your medicine.” After a bizarre occurrence involving wild animals, a swirling fog, and an Indian burial mound, Conor recovers from his illness, but he’s never quite the same. The novel expands to include a complex affair that involves the river-dwelling creature Piasa, “the Devourer of Souls,” and ancient beliefs, showing that a lot can happen in a seemingly quaint little Midwestern town. Full of folklore and charm, the story is an inviting mix of the fantastic, the innocent, and the altogether sinister. Readers are unlikely to forget the ever-present Troubles, to whom Conor remarks later in the book, “wherever we are is different from where we’ve been.” The book does hit its share of speed bumps, though, as it’s dotted with flat declarations (“Don’t you see, Conor has to accept who he is,” one character explains, rather obviously). All in all, however, the book avoids the clichés of the genre while providing a swift, spiraling journey.
A novel entry into the world of teenage fantasy that ultimately unfolds into a truly epic saga.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937387-66-2
Page Count: 570
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 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
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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