Young as he is, Reiken knows the territory of emotional commitment and confusion as well as anybody writing today. Beautiful...
The gentle empathy for the intricate muddle of family and romantic relationships that distinguished Reiken’s accomplished debut, The Odd Sea (1998), is also a dominant feature of this considerably more ambitious successor.
The story, a plaintive demonstration of the truism “that we all lose things. That loving someone means having to bear the pain of separation,” is set in northern New Jersey (Livingston) and Florida in the late 1970s and afterward, and in the minds and memories of its several major characters. Foremost is Anthony Rubin, a high-school hockey star and a hopeful romantic who believes he’ll somehow liberate sexpot Juliette Dimiglio (daughter of a “minor gangster” besieged by loan sharks) from her oafish boyfriend, and reconcile his adulterous father Michael and unstable mother Jess (who abandons her family and moves to Florida). Reiken moves skillfully among these lives, and others (including those of Anthony’s unillusioned older sister Dani[elle]; his former best friend Jay, the son of Michael’s married mistress; and Michael’s widowed father Max, in love again in his late 80s), creating multiple centers of interest that we visit again and again, in present time (during Anthony’s visit to his mother, three years after her flight south) and in lengthy action-filled flashbacks. Outcroppings of both shockingly sudden violence (a suicide, two savage beatings) and slow inexorable decline (the anorexic resignation of a roommate with whom Anthony bonds when he’s hospitalized for knee surgery, the increasing distance Jess keeps from even those she loves most) are subtly juxtaposed with quietly wrenching, oddly offbeat lyrical moments (Michael’s hilarious invention of “the Yiddish constellations” for his stargazing family; Anthony and Dani impulsively bike-riding through Livingston’s deserted streets in the middle of the night). Such seductive mysteries cohere in Anthony’s mind as “legends” that will simultaneously enrich him and—as the bittersweet conclusion shows—quietly break his heart.
Young as he is, Reiken knows the territory of emotional commitment and confusion as well as anybody writing today. Beautiful stuff.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-100507-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
