Novelist, essayist, and playwright Indiana (Rent Boy, 1994; Gone Tomorrow, 1993, etc.) brings together the insane events and natural disasters of our day in a novel that's most emphatically not a roman Ö clef but a fiction in which real life serves as ``honorary ballast for an entirely speculative'' narrative. The subject is death, Los Angelesstyle, and at story's center is the ongoing murder trial of two brothers who are accused of shooting their parents to death in what prosecutors claim was cold- blooded murder for inheritance, and what the defense claims was a preemptive strike against a sexually abusive father and his enabling wife. Sound familiar? Transcripts of the trial punctuate Indiana's larger narrative, which mainly follows the experiences of Seth, a gay East Coast journalist on assignment to cover the high- profile courtroom antics. Panoramic in scope, with all the sub- stories loosely linked, this pansexual melodrama seems to suggest that we're all killers in one fashion or another, and that father- son incest is at the root of much maladjusted behavior. Indiana waxes ironic about a wide range of types, from the presiding judge's secret life as a stalker to a taxi driver with AIDS whose affair with some rough trade is far more dangerous than he realizes. There's also the son of the washed-up soap star, who casually kills male tricks; the key trial witness with a bad case of Tourette's; and an overweight housewife who hopes to leave her husband for one of the brothers. Seth finds that violent dreams and tacky realities are hopelessly intertwined in California. Indiana's wickedest cuts, though, are reserved for the minor players, especially the on-target jabs at characters who resemble Dominick Dunne, Kathy Acker, and Jamaica Kincaid, to name a few. The clever parts never add up to a convincing whole here, just lots of trite (if acidic) riffs on our peculiarly skewed culture. (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48429-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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