Washington columnist Anderson (The Cambodia File, 1981, with Bill Pronzini; etc.)—famed and prized for his exposure of real-life evil political deeds—cooks up fictional thrills having to do with ruthless Japanese who still carry a grudge and have the billions in gold bullion to do something about it. As America's ill-advised, inexperienced President Walton (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) prepares to fly off to Osaka for a summit with the Japanese prime minister, pretty, ambitious, orphaned, young lawyeress Alison Carey and moody, insecure, but basically swell young lawyer Kevin Daulton—employees of a vastly powerful L.A.- D.C. law firm—slave over an immensely complex stock offering for a rabidly anti-Japanese conglomerateur. But what's this? Alison's first glimpse of her firm's ultrapowerful senior partner reveals him to be the same powerful manipulator she just happened to see secretly hobnobbing with even more ultrapowerful Japanese executives on a visit to her sister in, of all places, Guam. Wouldn't his loyalties be, you know, divided? At the same time, Elinor Woods—the kindly, attractive junior senator from California—gets an anonymous note on CIA letterhead urging her to ask the secretary of state what he knows about something called the ``O Fund,'' which she does, scaring the bejeebers out of the secretary and giving her committee chairman apoplexy. On the West Coast, the young lawyers look into the doings of their treacherous boss. On the East Coast, the senator and her dedicated Chicano chief of staff look into the ``O Fund,'' which has something to do with ill-gotten Manchurian gains. In Japan, a cabal of imperialist industrialists, gangsters, and politicians prepare to bring about the total collapse of the American financial system while President Walton is in Osaka suffering, as did his predecessor, from an upset stomach. It's all one big conspiracy. Heartstopping for foreign-policy wonks, who will, presumably, not be put off by bureaucratic dialogue (``Farrow grunted. `Gold was essential, of course' '').
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-8217-4212-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993
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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