A rollicking, rip-roaring novel, big and wild as the American frontier.
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Brawls and battles ensue when a trapping party encounters a weird tribe deep in the wilds of 19th-century Upper Michigan.
Swanson (Mesmer’s Disciple, 2012) returns with another work of historical fiction featuring tough-guy former patrolman Alvord Rawn. In Chicago in 1847, after being drummed out of New York for excessive violence, Rawn falls out with his double-crossing Chicago law enforcement superior and joins an ill-fated fur-trapping expedition to Upper Michigan with a motley crew of adventurers, including rough mountain men, a witty Irish immigrant and a nerdy scientist. Despite warnings from a tycoon named Cadwallader Jones and ominous Indian legends that their destination is protected by fearsome, copper-clad manitous, the group ventures deep into the wilderness. Soon enough, they’re attacked, but it turns out, their opponents bleed and aren’t gods after all; they’re men—a lost tribe of Welsh Indians descended from Madoc, a Welsh prince who immigrated to America in the 12th century. Hemmed in by advancing settlers, this tribe, like other natives, is just trying to survive, in this case by spinning fearsome legends and attacking interlopers. Buckets of blood spill throughout this tale, which ends happily for most and at least honorably for the dead and maimed who pile up on the losing end of the countless conflicts. Swanson bases his highly creative, action-packed novel on legend, backed by substantial historical research and acumen right down to the language, as florid as a 19th-century novel but as vigorous as a James Bond movie. Though glitches with writing mechanics crop up often enough to be distracting, and the occasional cliché slips through, Swanson creates convincing portraits of the men and their times, capturing the raw, restless spirit of the age and place. His descriptions of the land and the characters peopling it are particularly acute—so much so that the constant brannigans and battles sometimes seem overdone and anticlimactic. But this is a digestible and enjoyable fleshing out of a legend and setting often overlooked in the wide expanse of historical fiction.
A rollicking, rip-roaring novel, big and wild as the American frontier.Pub Date: April 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1939739247
Page Count: 498
Publisher: RiverRun Select
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
19
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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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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