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TAKE LEAVE AND GO

A dark winter of the spirit in a South African setting—and limned in sometimes too exquisite prose—by the author of Another Country (1992). Though his novel's set against a background suggestive of the oppressions of the recent past, Schoeman, an Afrikaner living abroad, is more concerned with the universal implications of violence, the role of creativity ``under siege,'' and the destruction of long-held ethnic shibboleths. Protagonist Adriaan, an acclaimed Afrikaner poet, lives in Cape Town, but the city's familiar landmarks are incidental, for what is happening to Adriaan and the city is reminiscent of places like Sarajevo—places where, as a fellow poet observes, ``There was a community, there was something happening here, something was alive—that's all gone now.'' Now in this city, in this ``burnt-out country,'' barbed wire closes off roads, and blood stains the asphalt. Over a dreary rainy winter, Adriaan, who is also mourning the departure of his lover Stephan, finds he cannot write. His job at a small museum cataloging donations seems futile; the local literati's posturing even more desperate; and the country's future bleak. Old friends flee to Europe, abandoning beloved homes in the countryside because there's no point going on, while others realize that they've been duped by the authorities, by Afrikaner mythology. Referring to a visit into the countryside, a journalist friend admits that, like a foreigner, he can now look cleareyed at what is happening: at the pervasive violence and poverty. As the winter ends, Adriaan, reconciled to solitude, has taken leave, as it were, of the place, and begins to write again, acknowledging ``that love remains, and memories, but that could never be enough. One did one's work.'' Life, creativity will endure. Palpably dark and apocalyptic evocations of GîtterdÑmmerung and creative despair, though the themes are long in the working, and never quite live up to their implied promise.

Pub Date: June 15, 1993

ISBN: 1-85619-200-8

Page Count: 279

Publisher: Sinclair-Stevenson/Trafalgar

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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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

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

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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