A historical novel with an overly complex plot, mostly redeemed by its brisk pace.
A crime drama that jumps back and forth between China and Ireland during the turbulent first third of the 20th century.
Mikie Gallagher grew up in Ireland at a time when nationalist sentiments ran high. His father was a hard-nosed cop who was committed to the independence of Ireland from British rule, but equally observant of the rule of law, and as a result, deeply critical of violence as a means to end the occupation. As a young child, Mikie meets Fiona, the beautiful, young daughter of Lord Burleigh, and immediately falls in love with her. Irish nationalists burn her castle to the ground, killing Lord Burleigh and Mikie’s father. Fiona’s body is never recovered and she’s presumed dead. Partly out of anguish and partly because Fiona often spoke of her dream to visit Shanghai, Mikie travels to that city to join an elite constabulary force. There he encounters a general antipathy toward his presence and a vast and dangerous world of underground crime. He also struggles to understand a nation that’s culturally separate from his, but that’s also experienced the humiliation of occupation. Overall, the action in this novel is fast and crisp throughout, and debut author O’Sullivan has a powerful grasp of both Irish and Chinese culture. For example, at one point, Mikie’s Chinese counterpart marvels, “We find your demeanour towards life to be inexplicable. The West can rise heroically to a war or a natural disaster but show an unbearable temper when meeting small discomfort.” There are so many twists and turns and distracting, gratuitous subplots that it’s easy for readers to miss the narrative forest for the trees. Still, this mystery thriller manages to provide more than enough well-rendered excitement to sustain readers’ attention.
A historical novel with an overly complex plot, mostly redeemed by its brisk pace.Pub Date: July 31, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9874517-2-9
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Rosetta No. 3 A/C Pty Ltd
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2015
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
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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