A richly satisfying slice of Americana.
An earnest teen learns valuable life lessons in Comer’s vividly rendered debut set in the frontier country of 19th-century Montana.
Life has dealt 14-year-old Deuteronomy Jesudas Seebea a raw hand. He’s an orphan trying to make his way in the world without guidance. Worse, Deuter knows too much about shady goings-on in Clevis Hook, Montana, and is forced to leave town abruptly. He eventually makes his way to a remote outpost, a small settlement called Railstop, where the slow westward crawl of a railroad line has come to an abrupt halt. The ragtag Band of Brigands has set up shop right in the path of the only logical route for the railroad’s expansion—and they won’t go down without a fight. Railstop’s many intriguing characters include Angelique de la Bataille, proprietress of the Glory Hole Saloon; Lyman Connors, the village smithy; and the O’Doody sisters, Parsimonie and Chastity, whose rock-solid biscuits can take out unsuspecting passersby. Much of the action is centered on the residents’ efforts to win a just settlement for the railroad expansion. Trying to make his voice heard in this cacophony is young Deuter; exploited for his naiveté, he still uses worldly skills to position himself on the right side of history. The rugged, Wild West nature of Montana is one of the novel’s many highlights, as much a living, breathing character as the humans. Evocative descriptions—“Boy’s mind is like cowboy coffee, made without a filter”—and crisp, salty dialogue liven up the proceedings, often with a dash of humor. The narrative still sags toward the middle, as talks between the railroad and town lose steam and the novelty of the setting and characters begins to wear a little thin. Despite the dip, what emerges in the end is an entertaining peek at an important moment in American history, when the glamour of gold was still glittering bright and the West was being won one small outpost at a time.
A richly satisfying slice of Americana.Pub Date: April 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-941295-52-6
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Barking Rain Press
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 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
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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