A sweeping planter-slave tale in the antebellum South, as seen through the prism of 21st-century sensibilities and...
A Civil War–era historical saga that chronicles a couple as they go from Cumberland Island, Georgia, to Groton, Connecticut, by 2011 Georgia Author of the Year McCash (Almost to Eden, 2010).
In antebellum Georgia, beautiful Elisabeth (aka “Zabette”) is the descendant of generations of slave owners and comely slaves. Raised primarily by her white grandmother, French-American Marguerite Bernardey, Zabette straddles the two lifestyles. Aware of her granddaughter’s delicate position, Marguerite exacts a promise from her white neighbor, Robert Stafford, that he’ll prevent Zabette from being sold after her death. Indeed, Stafford takes Zabette into his home to live there as his wife, long before her grandmother dies. A successful planter and businessman, he refuses to allow their six children to be raised as slaves, instead sending them to Connecticut where they can pass as white and live as free people. Eventually, Zabette joins them, while Robert remains in the South, growing increasingly bitter over his inability to possess all of Cumberland Island. Later, when his Southern fortunes are decimated by the Civil War, he allows his disappointment to cloud his relationship with Zabette. This novel transcends what could have been a clichéd tale of a master/slave affair, instead showing the truly tenuous position of African-Americans in the South before and after the war. McCash shows how Zabette’s intelligence and devotion to her children cause her to question Robert’s decisions, and how her long residence in the North educates her on issues that her upbringing never made her think about. In contrast, Robert evolves from a socially awkward, sympathetic character to a heartless, autocratic father to a sad, embittered old man. His deep resentment of the neighboring Cumberland Island planter, Phineas Nightingale, seems unwarranted, and his eventual cruelty toward Zabette inexcusable. Minor inconsistencies in the timeline—Robert is 69 in 1851, but only 67 in 1858—and a lack of character development among Zabette’s younger three children only slightly mar this otherwise well-composed novel.
A sweeping planter-slave tale in the antebellum South, as seen through the prism of 21st-century sensibilities and sensitivities.Pub Date: April 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9844354-8-7
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Twin Oaks Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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