Historical fiction that focuses less on history and more on those who survive it.
One British navy family faces the horror of two wars, forcing father and son apart—and down similar paths.
Lt. Cmdr. Charles Courtland is a loyal member of the British Royal Navy, a renowned hero who was thought to be the only survivor of the HMS Valor during World War I’s Battle of Jutland. But this experience has taken a toll on his mind, leaving him unable to adapt to life ashore or even connect with his children Anna and Brent, with father and son growing especially cold toward each other. Despite this distance, Brent shares his father’s passion for the sea and joins the navy himself, eventually coming to command a submarine at the outbreak of World War II. His reputation as a bold leader brings him notoriety and Brent is soon called upon to undertake a secret mission, one which will expose him to the horrors that scarred his father. Cordaro’s debut is well-researched and highly readable, blending historical fiction with military drama while providing a detailed look into British naval service during the early-to-mid 20th century. The novel’s primary focus is Brent’s military career, and there is some repetition in the younger Courtland’s earlier trials, including his constant clashes with higher ranking officers. This could have been more compelling if Brent was occasionally wrong in his protests, but his “wise-beyond-his-years” foresight and sense of justice isn’t developed realistically through mistakes or experiences, making them feel innate instead of a product of his growth. This perfection is thankfully tapered by his pigheadedness when it comes to the elder Courtland, and the discord with his father is an ever-present thread that holds the story together so that even when the two are not interacting their relationship is always in the background. The appearance of Winston Churchill is one of the novel’s high points, and his portrayal is handled with an honor and humor befitting the man’s legend.
Historical fiction that focuses less on history and more on those who survive it.Pub Date: March 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456339951
Page Count: 321
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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