A witty, enjoyable story with a supporting character who steals the show.
In Sefc’s (The Books of Norene I, 2018) tale, a British man’s trip to Slovakia turns into a seemingly endless series of misadventures.
The story begins with Gabriel James in handcuffs, being questioned by a detective named Horvath. Not long ago, Gabriel planned on spending a nice weekend with his girlfriend, Diana, at her family’s cottage in Slovakia. Although he’d known her brother—his former college roommate—for years, Gabriel had only been dating Diana for a mere three weeks. Things got off to a bad start when he inadvertently broke an unusual vase in the cottage. Diana was in another room at the time, so he made a quick exit to avoid acknowledging his blunder. Unexpected problems with his car slowed his getaway, and he wound up stranded in the forest with a dead cellphone. Not all of his luck was bad, though; he eventually meets Etta, a fellow Brit who travels frequently and knows how to navigate the woods. The two ran into trouble, however, encountering obstacles in their path and unpleasant forest wildlife. Even after they reached civilization (and public transportation), their journey didn’t get any easier—and it was destined to get significantly worse. Although the tone of Sefc’s book is lighthearted, much of the story is well-developed, as are many of the characters. The laudable Etta, for example, often talks of taking risks that Gabriel’s afraid to undertake. He’s shown to be content with his daily routine of work and sitting at home, while Etta regularly travels to new and exciting places. The humor never becomes farcical in tone, as the events are often all-too-plausible; many readers will groan in sympathy during a scene set on a train, for example. That said, Gabriel’s problems are caused more by folly than by bad luck; he makes mistakes that, while convincing, are entirely avoidable. Sefc’s concise prose gently nudges readers to a conclusion that’s clever and somewhat open-ended.
A witty, enjoyable story with a supporting character who steals the show.Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-8874-9
Page Count: 136
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2018
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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