Television anchor Lehrer (Flying Crows, 2004, etc.) offers light amusement in an academia where everyone seems perpetually...
A diversion about scholars of early American history who venerate Ben Franklin—who may have been as unscrupulous as many of them seem to be.
Glamorous Rebecca Kendall Lee, popular historian and TV guest, may have plagiarized a goodly bundle in Ronald Reagan: The Last Founding Father. As a consequence, she stands before an august panel of the ARHA (American Revolution Historical Association), who will determine her fate after verifying the crime. Trouble is, haughty Rebecca has scraped up her own evidence of plagiarism and lets the panelists know she’ll use it against them if they’re arrogant enough to find against her. Meanwhile, even bigger things are going on. As the panel ponders, Philadelphia is commemorating the death of Wally Rush, the great Franklin scholar and author of the wildly popular bestsellers Ben One and Ben Two. The dead scholar’s faithful friend and research associate is historian Reginald Raymond Taylor (he goes by “R”), one of the ARHA panel members on the Rebecca case. R, having grabbed the Amtrak train from the Rebecca hearing in D.C. up to Philly, learns that he’s been declared Wally Rush’s literary executor and, on top of that, that the Babbitt-like president of BFU (Benjamin Franklin University) wants R to head up a Franklin center—with comely and intelligent Clara Hopkins possibly as colleague. As tempting as Clara may be, though, R is already promised to fellow historian (and blocked writer) Samantha. Lots more than just sexual conflict is afoot, however, after R reads the explosive letter Wally Rush left for him. Could it be true? Could Franklin really have done that? It will be up to R to save or forever tarnish the reputation of the great Franklin—even as another revelation, this one about R himself, will make the Rebecca affair look like small change.
Television anchor Lehrer (Flying Crows, 2004, etc.) offers light amusement in an academia where everyone seems perpetually on leave, classroom drudgery a thing unknown.Pub Date: May 24, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-6198-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
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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