A bustling, gossipy, Belva Plain-style chat-up taking place in 1893 Chicago and peopled with some real personalities of the time, who go beyond mere cameo-hood to influence the lives of two women- -one rich and miserable, the other poor and ambitious. Young Josef and Hannah Chernik, of a dirt-poor Russian Jewish immigrant family, visit the 1893 Columbian Exposition where, by lucky chance, Josef can show off his sharpshooting ability at Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show. Meanwhile, also at the World's Fair is lovely Isabelle Woodruff, who's a mere possession, ignored by cold banker husband Phillips, and having no fun at all. Eventually, both Isabelle and Hannah (who never meet) stir to independence—from Phillip (who has some S/M sex on with the maid) and from poverty, respectively. Isabelle begins to be involved with the good work of Hull House, founded by Jane Addams to enrich the lives of the poor, and responds to the courting of lawyer Clarence Darrow, who opens her eyes to the injustices foisted upon working people. At the same time, Hannah sews for slave wages at Marshall Field's, is wooed by a dashing sales manager, becomes pregnant, and then is discarded. Exiled from family, she lands at the brothel of tough-with-heart-of-gold Carrie Watson, and toils in that particular vineyard; later, however, she'll convince Carrie that she has more lasting talent in real-estate investment. (The baby is permanently farmed out.) By now, Josef has moved his parents to the company town of the Pullman Palace Car Company, where there are myriad reasons for the famous strike that follows. Josef is unfairly accused of murder but is defended by Darrow. Throughout, there are savage murders of young women by the Indian Running Wolf, whose own family was just as savagely murdered at Wounded Knee. In a farewell, Cody offers Running Wolf a way home. A good, juicy first novel, rich with gusty scandals, strikes, and show-stoppers.
Pub Date: June 16, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-11223-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992
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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