Joseph’s story should move, but, unfortunately, the man himself seems less a victim than an unregenerate perennial bad boy.
A woman recalls her love for an aging author and WWII survivor, in a luminously written if unaffecting debut novel.
Edelman effectively evokes the horrors of war but is less successful in establishing a connection between Joseph Kruger’s traumatic experiences then and his subsequent treatment of women. The story begins as Kitty Jacobs travels by train from Paris, where she now lives, to Amsterdam to attend her former lover’s funeral. In a series of flashbacks, she remembers the affair that changed her life. A would-be writer, Kitty was in her early 30s when she met Joseph in New York. He was then in his 70s, a famous writer and playwright celebrated for his bleak vision. “We live in madness,” he tells Kitty. “Be ready to hate. And most important, travel alone. Maybe then you’ll have a chance to survive.” As he woos her with food and conversation, then makes love to her, this remarkably virile septuagenarian tells Kitty his life tale. Though meant to be a profound indictment of anti-Semitism, it often seems more like the memoirs of a satyr, as Joseph frequently recalls his numerous sexual encounters. Vienna-born, he left in 1938, when his Jewish parents sent him to the presumed safety of Amsterdam. There, he lived with a Jewish family until the Germans invaded and took his hosts away. He survived by hiding in an attic and relying on the kindness of Marijke, a prostitute. After the war, he settled in Israel, married, and fathered a son, only to abandon his family later. He continued his wanderings and seductions, became a renowned playwright, acquired and abandoned another wife and son. Her journey over, Kitty recalls the last time she saw Joseph, suitcase in hand, ready to move on.
Joseph’s story should move, but, unfortunately, the man himself seems less a victim than an unregenerate perennial bad boy.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2001
ISBN: 1-57322-189-9
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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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