While offering some enthralling accounts of war, this book delivers a frustratingly anticlimactic end to an otherwise strong...
This concluding novel in a trilogy examines three American lives that intersect during the Vietnam War.
Cathy Addison, a nurse stationed in Vietnam, is brutally beaten and repeatedly raped by a psychopath, Ray Slaugh, who was stalking her best friend and colleague, Barbara Mandera. Dion Murphy, Cathy’s boyfriend, enraged when he discovers what happened, tracks down Ray and kills him in self-defense. Soon after, Cathy shows up (it’s unclear how she too found Ray when the military could not), and shoots his corpse in a fuguelike fit of fury. Dion, a Marine lieutenant, enlists the help of a first sergeant to doctor the scene of the shooting, but military investigators figure out that he and Cathy are likely responsible, and prepare to prosecute both. Meanwhile, Cathy resigns her post and returns to Minnesota, pulverized by distress, especially after she learns she is pregnant as a result of the rape. Dion travels back to the United States to pledge his loyalty to her and marry her, and to stand by her side when they inevitably face trial. Meanwhile, Norman Coddington, a fighter pilot, finally learns that his girlfriend, Barbara, lied about her past—she was once a prostitute and sex slave, and hails from inauspicious beginnings. Norm leaves her, and Barbara, extremely distraught, attempts suicide. Shortly after, Norm is shot down flying over North Vietnam and captured, and the appalling ordeal forces him to reconsider his judgment of Barbara. The harrowing account of Norm’s treatment in captivity by the enemy continues the series’ commitment to a realistic, if often gruesome, portrayal of war. But this is the weakest of the three volumes, mostly because the narrative focus shifts from the war itself, Hardy’s (Whisper In My Ear, 2015, etc.) strong suit, and devolves into a soap opera. Furthermore, the writing remains just as cloyingly earnest as in the first two installments, and riddled with clichés: “It is better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all.” And repeating the pattern of the first two volumes, the final book is indefensibly long at 806 pages. Despite the tale’s powerful depiction of Norm’s experience as a prisoner of war, readers won over by the first book may be disappointed by the last.
While offering some enthralling accounts of war, this book delivers a frustratingly anticlimactic end to an otherwise strong series.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 9781515015048
Page Count: 564
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
