An engrossing, provocative novel.
A young, born-again, American evangelical goes to Guatemala in 1983 to study Spanish in preparation for future work as a missionary, but his experiences over the subsequent three months in a country run by the fundamentalist dictator Gen. José Efraín Ríos Montt shock, frighten and ultimately challenge him to question his faith.
Kasten’s novel is unapologetically political, a vehicle for presenting “an object lesson for those who think theocracy leads to peace and justice.” As such, it suffers from occasional plot contrivances. But her well-crafted prose and attention to detail bring Kit Lamb to life. The third-person narration is from Kit’s perspective, blending his current experiences with memories of the troubled life—and salvation—that brought him to the small town of Antigua. Kasten offers poignant portrayals of the indigenous population, as well as detailed descriptions of clothing, colors and landscapes. These create vibrant images that convey a sense of being with Kit as he walks the narrow streets and wanders the hillsides. An amateur artist, Kit sketches portraits of children in the center plaza, connecting with them even before his studies begin. His artist’s eye for nuance and inherent compassion compel him to notice the discrepancies between Montt’s stated fundamentalist doctrine and the reality of indigenous life in Guatemala. Colleen, a 20something American girl, is seated next to Kit on the plane. She serves as the love interest as well as the catalyst for the upheavals and discoveries that propel Kit through the tortuous journey from a naïve boy to a self-sufficient young man. He struggles against her obvious contempt for his religious devotion, determined to save her soul from eternal damnation, even as he finds himself drawn to her physically. Ultimately, it is Kit’s relationship with Colleen that results in his first-hand experience with the brutality of the Rios Montt regime.
An engrossing, provocative novel.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-0615390857
Page Count: 345
Publisher: Islet
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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