Unlike his protagonist, Bradley (Love and Obits, 1992; The Best There Ever Was, 1990; Tupelo Nights, 1988) is no novice fiction writer. Yet this book, earnestly sentimental and totally lacking in irony, seems wet behind the ears. Pace Burnette, 28, has just finished his first novel and, flushed with anticipated success, returns to his hometown to await public acclaim and juicy Hollywood deals. Home is a small Louisiana town called Smoke, and most everyone there is something other than they seem—except Pace's parents and sisters, whose sheer goodness allows for outpourings of sticky prose. His father's eyes ``were green and smart, and in them I glimpsed what I'd always found in there, which is to say, a great store of love for me.'' His two ``beautiful'' sisters tell him, ``We're so lucky to have such a brother!...Why, we're the luckiest people alive.'' Such people frequently have ``warm, happy tears'' in their eyes. When not sharing tender moments with his cardboard family, Pace pursues beautiful Genie Monteleone, with whom he's been ``crazy mad goofy in love'' since they were in grade school. The fact that she's now a hooker doesn't squelch the flame; after all, she has a heart of gold. So, too, does Pace's best friend, Jay Carnihan, who, we are told, is ``the most mysterious resident the town had ever known.'' (He seems more like a poorly developed character.) Jay spends his time drinking, mooning over beautiful Bethany Bixler (a prevaricating store clerk with a heart of gold), and plotting to kidnap glutinous multimillionaire Rayford Holly, owner of the Monster Mart down the road that's killing his family store. The kidnapee, of course, turns out to have a heart of gold. These people need more lemon and less sugar in their lemonade. Still, despite the cloying world view, the novel is sort of fun to read.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8050-2421-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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