A sequel that stands firmly on its own, brimming with political intrigue and historical drama.
A Boston merchant is falsely accused of murdering a government official in 18th-century China in Flanders’ (The Girl from Recoleta and Other Stories of Love, 2014, etc.) intricate sequel to The Republic of Virtue (2014).
Businessman Calvin Tarkington’s plans for a happy life after his return to America from France unravel when his fiancee suddenly dies. Grief-stricken, he decides to expand his trade and takes a monthslong voyage to China. Although the Middle Kingdom allows some foreigners to do business in Macao, it remains largely closed off to Westerners. Many Chinese regard the “barbarians,” with their strange customs and religion, with suspicion, and the introduction of opium into the market has further eroded their trust for “foreign devils.” Scholarly Calvin is curious about the mysterious empire and spends most of his journey learning the language. He’s a quick study, and soon after his arrival, a fellow American asks him to help him pressure a Chinese trader into repaying a loan. Meanwhile, Commissioner Sun, the emperor’s representative, is investigating the killing of a suspected opium dealer. He stumbles upon the confrontation with the trader and takes a liking to Calvin. However, their budding friendship is cut short in a moment of violence. Calvin, accused of murder, is soon swept up in a murky tug of war between corrupt forces trying to hide their misdeeds and honorable officials seeking to clean house. He finds an unlikely ally in Gen. Daitun, who takes Calvin to Peking to defend his innocence. For the most part, Flanders paints the Chinese and their culture with nuance, avoiding the common trap of portraying Calvin as a persecuted, enlightened white savior. His meticulous eye for detail is on display the moment the Liberty docks in Macao; he portrays the land of tea and porcelain as vibrant and complex—a country struggling to balance tradition with innovation. The author does recycle some of The Republic of Virtue’s plot points, including a traitorous countryman and a bold, ahead-of-her-time love interest, but the dressing is so different, the setting so rich, and Calvin’s cultural immersion so absorbing that readers will hardly complain.
A sequel that stands firmly on its own, brimming with political intrigue and historical drama.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990867517
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Munroe Hill Press
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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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