An ambitious interpretation of an intriguing figure that should appeal to historical-fiction enthusiasts.
A novel that details the life of American revolutionary Robert Morris, from his humble beginnings to his triumphant rise and eventual ruin.
As the story opens, Morris, a wealthy merchant and a recently elected member of the Continental Congress, spends a cold winter’s night at the City Tavern in 1776 Philadelphia, discussing politics with the barmaid, Betsey. The tavern is a gathering place for the “prominent” and the “ordinary” alike to share opinions, emotions, and ideas. Morris is no stranger to so-called ordinary life, growing up uneducated in Liverpool, England, without a mother. He shares his revolutionary ideologies with Betsey just as passionately as he does with Maj. Wilhelm von Lowenstein, a doctor in the Hessian Mercenary Army, sent to the Colonies to study the “unseen battle scars” inflicted on the minds of soldiers. As the narrative progresses, Foyt (Time to Retire, 2013, etc.) explores and develops Morris’ character through these conversations, embellishing on his grand economic plans to expand his sea-merchant trading business and his hopes of freedom from the English crown. Unfortunately, as Morris’ arrogance and hunger for wealth and power grow, his impending demise becomes apparent. Foyt has written this thoroughly researched novel with great attention to detail, bringing dusty history to life with down-to-earth tales of the everyday experiences of the American Revolution, and he offers plenty of settings that will be familiar to aficionados of the era. Rather than telling a war story with tired tropes of battlefield heroism and gore, the author instead examines the inner workings of Morris’ psyche through imagined but historically rich dialogue, and he effectively shows how passion, power, and an obsession with the idea of revolution drive the Founding Father to a point of irreversible greed. As a result, watching his downfall becomes just as engrossing as his impressive rise to success—if not more so.
An ambitious interpretation of an intriguing figure that should appeal to historical-fiction enthusiasts.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-941713-23-5
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Andrew Benzie Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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