A novel of ideas can easily become righteous and preachy; this thoughtful matriarchal tale impressively rises above that.
Finally in charge of the planet, women resolve to do a better job than men; but for all their good intentions, Utopia eludes them in this study of human nature and gender roles.
In this debut novel, the war to end all wars has been accomplished in the not-too-distant future for the simple reason that the world has run out of men and materiel to fight anymore. The countryside has been reduced to rubble and most men are dead or presumed so. Not coincidentally, in a wave of vicious misogyny, women had been severely oppressed. Now, it is 10 years after, and the roles are reversed. Through sheer grit, women continue to dig out of the ruins and vow to make a brave, new matriarchal world. But they must always be on guard against roving bands of “raiders,” men bent on pillage, rape, and worse. (A few men are accepted, but they are literally house husbands.) Kate Decker is making a go of it on her farm with her twins, Margaret and Laura, and son, Jonah. One night, a man emerges from the forest begging help for his sick boy, Evan. Thus begins the tentative, tortured relationship between Kate and Michael MacGregor, who has in effect kidnapped his own son so that he will not lose him. If the women in town find out, they will take young Evan and probably kill Michael. With so much hatred, can a true balance ever be achieved? Aguila is a remarkably talented novelist. Her vivid passages paint a fractured society; one female character says of men: “We buried all of them. Even the ones who survived.” The author is not afraid to let a scene grow at its own pace, and virtually everything rings true here. And this engrossing tale is wonderfully balanced with fully developed characters: readers understand what fear and loathing have done to most of these women (even to Kate near the end). But they also know that Michael is a good man and should not be tarred with the same brush aimed at most of his sex. Men and women will react differently to the story, but both should find much to ponder (attention, book clubs). In the end, readers are forced to examine the tragedies that evil can wreak.
A novel of ideas can easily become righteous and preachy; this thoughtful matriarchal tale impressively rises above that.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9911650-0-1
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Coley Press
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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