An engrossing Christmas Carol–esque parable of modern racism.
A debut novel tells the story of a rising Atlanta businessman visited by disturbing dreams of the slavery era.
Jason Scott and his wife, Callie, get into a fight on the way home from a party with some of his co-workers. Callie feels that Jason’s ambition allows him to tolerate overt racism from his bosses while he thinks she is naïve about what it takes to get ahead in America. That night, while sleeping on a futon on the deck of their spacious Atlanta home, Jason has an incredible dream: He is flying without a plane (or even a body) across a sky. Descending through a hole in the clouds, he flies up behind a group of lightly dressed blacks walking along a forest path: “Jason realized he was headed directly for the man in front. Without a hint of deceleration, he was about to crash into the back of the man’s head.” Over the course of the next week, the waking Jason reflects on his long relationship with Callie while being forced to mete out increasingly demeaning admonishments to his black co-workers on behalf of his white managers. At night, however, Jason watches from inside the head of his ancient black host—without the ability to comment or control the man’s actions—as the figure is captured, placed in chains, and marched to a dungeon. What will these lessons of the slave trade teach Jason about his station in contemporary America? Shelton writes in a descriptive prose that captures his characters’ emotional states in vivid detail: “Their pupils were dilated, indistinguishable from the pitch-blackness of the rest of the room. If eyes are windows to the soul, he saw sets of eyes—scores of them, all reflecting souls traumatically impaired.” While the premise of the book might sound heavy-handed, the author shapes it with a surprising amount of grace and nuance. Jason is no Ebenezer Scrooge, and the everyday racism of contemporary America is shown to be both pernicious and exhausting. While perhaps too didactic for some readers, the novel strives—and largely succeeds—to present the issue in its complexity.
An engrossing Christmas Carol–esque parable of modern racism.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-945473-70-8
Page Count: 251
Publisher: Off the Common Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 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
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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