More a collection of stories than a novel, but admirable characters and an ample supply of spine-tingling moments leave an...
A historical thriller from debut author Lynch about a vicious murder that serves as the catalyst for a decadeslong family curse.
In the early 19th century on islands in the Chesapeake Bay, Jacob Whalen works hard to make a living while trying to dissociate himself from the name tainted by his father, a thieving murderous picaroon (pirate). But Jacob’s actions on a stormy night may have their own repercussions for his descendants. In the 20th century, young Tig grows up in a family with ties to the Whalens; the connection, among others, isn’t exactly clear. It seems that a family curse has been behind murders, fatal accidents and a festering evil. Though fiction, Lynch’s book is partly based on historical events; as such, the first six chapters, which detail Jacob’s life away from his marauding father, sometimes read like a history lesson more than a narrative—though it ends with a wallop when a storm creates the perfect mood for a massacre. Tig comes across as the story’s focus, but he often shares the spotlight, since most chapters, each with its own title, are their own stories: “Chicken Feed,” for example, is the story of Nick, Tig’s father, working away from his family, with Tig relegated to a supporting role. Still, Tig is a strong, laudable character whom readers see mature from a 12-year-old boy into a grandfather. Perhaps the author’s finest creation is the delicate layer of menace that spreads across the novel. Certain inanimate objects, like a simple statue, are so horrifying that the mere sight of them instills fear. Sherman, another man affected by the curse, has a son—the “boy people talked about”—who dominates the book’s most disturbing moments. In Sherman’s chapter, “The Card Game,” he’s unmistakably frightened by the boy, who imitates animal sounds in lieu of speaking; Sherman even refuses to call him by name. The son’s creepily sudden full-grown appearance in front of Sherman is the book’s most unnerving image. Fortunately, Lynch doesn’t let the loosely connected chapter-stories get out of hand, and she ends it all with a fitting conclusion.
More a collection of stories than a novel, but admirable characters and an ample supply of spine-tingling moments leave an indelible impression.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478233879
Page Count: 236
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2013
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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