A grimly beautiful depiction of the ugliness of war.
An American soldier in Vietnam struggles to reconcile himself to the horrors of combat in this debut novel.
Theo Garrett simply isn’t prepared for Vietnam, such an extraordinary contrast to the Vermont summers of his youth. After the draftee arrives in the war-torn country, he’s handed an M-16, a weapon with which he’s never trained; he discovers that his pants don’t fit; and he’s all but immediately assigned to guard duty. Theo is a combat engineer who specializes in water purification systems but his technical expertise doesn’t spare him from the grim reality of war—the violence and danger are ubiquitous. He’s nearly killed by sniper fire but seems to take no solace in his survival; nor can he find lasting comfort in religion. McGinnis movingly portrays Theo’s mounting emotional trauma. In one heartbreaking scene, his superior officer decides not to risk lives by attempting to rescue fellow soldiers shot down in a helicopter: “I felt nausea build inside my stomach as the convoy pulled out. I felt relieved for not having to go into the valley to fight, but I knew the men in the Chinook would die or be taken prisoner. I felt safe and cowardly.” Theo reacts to his terrifying environment by becoming something of a screw-up—he narrowly averts being sent to military prison, first for shooting up a hotel, and then for going AWOL. The author concludes the book with a personal reflection on his own Vietnam experiences, observing “there is nothing glamorous about war.” McGinnis writes poetically melancholic prose, and artfully constructs a dark atmosphere of foreboding and despair. The only barrier to readers’ full immersion is the inscrutability of the protagonist—one doesn’t have enough of a sense of Theo’s character prior to the war to fully appreciate his withering under it. In fact, readers will develop a stronger connection to the author, who is far more forthcoming about himself than the character he conjures. Still, this is a dramatically haunting book and an emotionally searching peek at the wages of war.
A grimly beautiful depiction of the ugliness of war.Pub Date: April 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5304-8142-2
Page Count: 216
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2019
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
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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