A well-written but mostly predictable Christian novel.
Lederman’s (co-editor: Good Words for the Young, 2016) decades-spanning Christian historical novel tells the story of a group of misfits who find their faith in Las Vegas.
Uukkarnit Noongwook is a Native American Athabaskan from Nenana, Alaska. In 1925, he sets out with his mother to find his father, a dog-sledder-turned-celebrity who absconded to the Lower 48 with a New York reporter. Their search brings them to Nevada, where a silver boom has drawn men from all over. Uukkarnit adopts the name “Luke” and encounters a group of kind Christians who teach him the ways of their faith. Meanwhile, David Gold is a boxer from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who attended the Moody Bible Institute before becoming the sparring partner of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. He’s seeking an answer to the questions, “Can I love God, not as I want Him to be, but as He is; and what is His will—what does He want of me?” By 1930, David is in Reno, Nevada, where he meets a woman whose small, Las Vegas–based congregation needs a preacher. In 2011, Tim Faber and Joan Reed are the middle-aged producers of the hit documentary series Mysteries of Modern Science. Tim never had any faith, but the once-devout Joan pines for her lost religiosity. They’re making a special about Belgian Catholic priest Georges Lemaître, who was the first to theorize that the universe had once been atom-sized and continues to expand—although, as this book portrays it, he was written out of history by jealous, secular scientists. Joan even suspects that an attempt was made on his life. Now, the producers travel to Las Vegas to meet with Lemaître’s 99-year-old astrophysicist colleague, Luke Noongwook, to get the full story. These separate stories of varied characters come together to form a tapestry of faith, yearning, and wonder at the majesty of the universe. Lederman’s prose is polished and often lyrical, particularly when he voices the characters of Luke and his mother: “Our gods are as harsh as the world around us, they offer no relief,” Luke’s mother says to David and her son. “Tatqim, moon god, lusts after his sister, Seqinek, the sun, and gives her endless chase; their story is an ugliness that mars the beauty of the night. And your god, where is he? Can he, too, be found among the stars?” Even in these moments, however, Lederman tips his hand to reveal the book’s strict Christian worldview, in which atheists are depicted as arrogant fools and other religions are portrayed as being rooted in fear. The book has the expected cameos of historical fiction—including the aforementioned Johnson and pilot Amelia Earhart—which fans of the genre will enjoy, even if they do strain credulity. The overall milieu is attractive throughout, and the novel is often entertaining. However, because it is, first and foremost, a story of rediscovering faith, the ultimate resolution of the main characters’ stories is never really in doubt.
A well-written but mostly predictable Christian novel.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9986030-1-8
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Azure Star, LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2019
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
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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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