A sequel to the pop-prolific author's The Proud and the Free (1994). Dailey's previous novel featured the forced march westward in 1838 by the highly civilized, politically sophisticated Cherokee Nation from Georgia to Oklahoma, and the wavering fortunes of two families through a peppering of feuds, feasts, faminesand romance. Now it's 1860, and the Gordon/Stuart families are rather comfortably settled; as before, they are owners of slavesone of whom will be a hero on his way to freedom. Here, the ``rugged and compelling'' Cherokee is Lije Stuart, a recent Harvard grad who meets again Diane Parmelee, daughter of an Army captain; as time passes, their passionate attraction is going to be tried, leashed, and unleashedright up to the last page. Lije is the son of those lovers of The Proud and the Free, Temple and ``The Blade,'' who also produced young Sorrell. Meantime, the Blade's sister Susannah is cutting the mustard with a ridin' Texas ranger, and their courting will punctuate the main actionthe Civil War and a boiling family feud that will lead to murder. Temple's brother Kipp and son, Alex, represent that sector of the Nation who blamed their leaders for selling out. Forced to choose sides, the ``neutral nation'' is divided in allegiances. Lije had seen his grandfather killed at the hands of assassins; now the Blade is in danger: ``My uncle [Kipp] would like to see my father dead. This war gives them license to kill...For many Cherokees [the] war...will become...an excuse to settle old scores.'' Throughout, there is the blast of open warfare in fields and plains, along with verbal birdshot and bombshells in the dining room. Finally, there's the inevitable interfamilial murder, betrayal (aided by innocent Sorrell), and lasting love. Dailey uses a real tributary of American history that she peoples with broadly noble (or despicable) chaps and ever-lovin' ladies. A reliable circulator.
Pub Date: Sept. 5, 1995
ISBN: 0-316-17205-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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