Laugh-a-minute collection of short rhyming verse for adults.
It would seem that Eastaugh has never met a situation he couldn’t laugh about—or versify, for that matter. This assemblage of more than 200 poems, capturing a decade’s output, treats no subject as sacrosanct and suggests that the best way to tackle life’s biggest challenges is to poke holes in them until they’ve been cut down to manageable size. A few jabs in your own ribs, just to keep yourself honest, rounds out the jester philosophy. Eastaugh roams widely across subjects as varied as the circle of life, loneliness, pop culture, the nature of happiness, generation gaps, sex, drinking, nostalgia, racism and, naturally, the ever-shrinking size of mobile phones. In fact, the quirky, comedic plot twist, usually involving diving precipitously from lofty subjects to land unceremoniously on the grossly mundane, may be the literary device he has most completely mastered. He evinces a flair for sketching out what appear to be sweet, innocent scenarios only to jolt the reader (and often the narrator) with some jarring juxtaposition at the last moment—lovemaking that transforms to cannibalism; a beautiful woman who, post coitum, turns out to be a mustachioed man; an attempt to borrow a book that ends up in an uncomfortably thorough medical exam. Eastaugh gleefully subjects his narrators to a feverishly imaginative variety of harrowing, hilarious situations that bespeak some level of evil genius. Employing a simple, singsong rhythm of iambs and anapests and a strictly regular rhyme scheme, Eastaugh plays off nursery rhyme and greeting card forms to sing songs scatological and sexual, a very successful formal technique, at least until he wants to treat a serious subject. His one-register voice is the one weak point here. Poems about the mysteries of existence, the darker side of human nature and the challenges and indignities of his multiple sclerosis too often fail to generate pathos, sounding, as they do, exactly like his sillier pieces. As funny and subversively socially conscious as they may be, these poems are sure to offend nearly as many as they delight. Eastaugh pulls few punches, in his subject matter and in his handling of that subject matter, and, in this fashion, resembles perhaps no one more than the comedian Louis C.K. For those bold enough to brave the wicked irony, though, the payoff is well worth it. A delightful bit of mischief and verbal horseplay.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452053547
Page Count: 230
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
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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