An amusing and thoughtful political tale.
In this novel, a Donald Trump supporter dreams of building the restaurant of the future while others conspire to hold him accountable for the low wages he pays his workers.
George Dealy and his wife, Suzanne, have always had their differences politically. Republican George came from a working-class background and now owns several McDonald’s franchises. Suzanne, whose heritage includes wealthy parents, currently co-chairs the Democratic Committee in their town of Canaandale, New York. On a fateful night in the summer of 2016, George antagonizes his wife by insulting the French economist Thomas Piketty in front of her cultured European friends Hugo and Francesca. Later that evening, when Suzanne mentions a local news story about an impoverished woman who shoplifted, George suggests that if she empathizes so much with the plight of the poor, she should try it herself. Enraged, Suzanne sets out to do just that, hoping to humiliate her husband. Her plans change when she runs into Steve Harris, an underemployed marketer recently separated from his wife. The two bond over a mutual affection for Piketty. Harris sees their meeting as kismet while Suzanne senses another opportunity for revenge on her husband. Meanwhile, Harris’ daughter Cindy is hoping her dad and mother can reconcile and that her boyfriend, a Fight for $15 organizer, would be more supportive. The economic arguments the characters have should be familiar to readers. But their entertaining antics and Hallberg’s (Boon Juster or The Reason for Everything, 2014) snappy prose make for a very engaging read. The only problem with this absorbing story is the foreword, in which the author defines his book as a “social novel,” comparing it to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Jungle, and The Grapes of Wrath. This seems like a misclassification; instead of depicting the struggles of the working class, the tale skillfully shows readers how middle- and upper-class people talk about the rights of workers. (At one point, Hugo tells George: “There is a role for government in helping prevent the worst excesses of an economic system that is fundamentally based on maximizing personal gain. The minimum wage…is only there to protect the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.”) While perhaps bordering on a social novel, Hallberg’s book is delightfully more satirical in tone. It is a relatable and humorous caper and a cogent breakdown and sendup of modern political discourse.
An amusing and thoughtful political tale.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9913770-4-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: The Reason for Everything, LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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