Immigrant history palatably told, with a little bodice-ripping romance thrown in for good measure.
It’s a formula as old as time: If you want your heart broken, fall in love with a star.
A pop star, that is—or, in the case of Delaney’s latest (Shannon, 2009, etc.), a star of the stage, Venetia Kelly. The story crosses the continents between Ireland and New York, along which route young Ben MacCarthy loses his father to the wiles of the temptress—a woman born out of wedlock, unmarried and of the theater, enough to banish her from polite society. Sent by mater to fetch pater from the viper’s lair, young Ben falls in love with Venetia himself and runs off to join the traveling show. Will bliss follow? Dear reader, if you know an Irish story, you would never imagine it, though there are some moments in Delaney’s leisurely novel where the misery is slightly less compounded than in others. All right, will young Ben at least find misery in the company of Venetia? That depends on whether Venetia turns out to be the settling-down type, which is, well, problematic but possible, as the author illustrates. But Ben and Venetia and the rest of Delaney’s characters are really props through which the author can deliver lightly spun histories of the Irish at home and in New York, working old grievances (“The idea of socially acceptable Irish in nineteenth-century New York—call that an oxymoron. No matter what their wealth, the new Irish-Americans had a tough haul”) and reveling in lyrical language to describe the everyday (“I organized some bread and marmalade, and a glass of milk”; “He had attended to whomsoever he’d needed to see and had come back to find me”) Delaney writes with immediacy and without anachronism, though in well-tried style that some will find enchanting and others trying, such as his habit of breaking the fourth wall at odd moments to address the reader. Fans won’t mind.
Immigrant history palatably told, with a little bodice-ripping romance thrown in for good measure.Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6783-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2010
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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