This high-concept novel has a bizarre, unique twist, but it’s not always easy to see through the dense prose.
In Goettel’s debut novel, a man becomes trapped in his wife’s body.
Young Linda has led a peculiar, sheltered life. Even before she and her husband drink poisoned wine that changes their lives, things aren’t exactly going well for her. She’s bulimic, dislikes her job at a group home, distrusts her husband and seems to be out of time and place, uncomfortable in her own skin. Perhaps that’s why she seems to disappear after drinking the funny wine. The drink kills her husband, but not entirely—though Derrick’s body is dead, he appears to have spiritually taken up residence inside of Linda. This isn’t the classic Freaky Friday type of body swap, since the Derrick who resides inside of Linda seems to maintain some of her ideas and personality, which may be why he has such an impossible time convincing Linda’s mother, Shelley, that he is really Derrick. Shelley, whose passive-aggressive nature has probably contributed to her daughter’s psychological issues, takes Linda/Derrick back to Linda’s childhood home while Linda recovers from the scare that sent her to the hospital and left Derrick dead. The two personalities struggle against one another inside Linda’s body as Linda fights to come back into herself, growing stronger and perhaps more stable through the strange ordeal. The novel, told from an omniscient perspective, employs a stream-of-consciousness style that, much like the personalities inside Linda, can be confusing. In one exchange at the hospital, the point of view shifts from the doctor to Linda/Derrick to Shelley in the space of just a few paragraphs. At other times, the rambling style of thought and speech makes little sense: “New England gentry, old English terms: saw-spins.” Elsewhere, Derrick’s ineptitude can be a bit much at times. It’s hard to believe he has no idea how to do laundry and has never heard of tortellini.
This high-concept novel has a bizarre, unique twist, but it’s not always easy to see through the dense prose.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1560027911
Page Count: 328
Publisher: University Editions
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2013
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
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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