Another of Aiken's playful yet hearty romantic fancies, with a cast lifted (respectfully) from the luminously peopled novels of Jane Austen. Aiken's previous novel, Eliza's Daughter (1994), focused on an offstage figure from Sense and Sensibility who confronts the former, now unhappy, Dashwood sisters. Aiken has wisely jettisoned attempts at irony and witty pyrotechnics; still, her cast members here, borrowed from Austen, take some entertaining turns. In Austen's bleak and sketchy The Watsons, probably begun in 1804 and never finished, Elizabeth Watson confides to sister Emma, with whom she has been reunited after Emma's 14 years with kind Aunt Maria, grim thoughts on their single state: "You know we must marry . . . it is very bad to grow old and be poor and laughed at." But that seems to be the fate of these young women, now in their 20s, for their father, a gentle clergyman, is quite poor. The soon-to-be family head is pompous, unsympathetic brother Robert, married to horrid Jane, "callow" and unhelpful. Their sisters Penelope and Margaret are generally unpleasant. Aiken picks up Austen's tale and carries it imaginatively along. Penelope marries nice, elderly Dr. Harding, and buys, renovates, and moves into a grand, if decaying mansion. But heartaches abound: Elizabeth's former suitor marries another; kind brother Sam is refused marriage to pleasant Mary Edwards, pledged to dim Lord Osborne. Emma is not attracted to curate Adam, because he's tethered to the dowager Lady Osborne. And dear Aunt Maria has vanished after having borne up under the weight of a miserable marriage for many years. Before the close, when lovers will traipse off hand in hand, there will be reversals and upheavals; a fatal accident; a destructive theft and elopement; disclosure of an old scandal; a rescue; and even a rousing horse race. As always, for those attuned to Austen, and to Aiken's imaginative, respectful variations, simply charming.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0312145934
Page Count: 221
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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