A well-told, if occasionally implausible, time-travel tale.
In Bennett’s debut novel, a group of adventurers on a mysterious mission journey back in time to a medieval castle.
With a promise of riches, the wealthy, eccentric Gilles Breannan asks debt-ridden video gamer Drake MacKay to accompany him on a trip to the Castle MacQueed, suspended in time circa the year 865. Both men have already honed their battle skills in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group dedicated to the exploration of life in Europe prior to the 17th century. Drake quickly learns he is not the only invitee; others include Gilles’ assistant and lover, Siddonie Velero, and two medical doctors specializing in neonatology (the care of newborn babies) and high-risk obstetrics, respectively. After a tense moment of time travel, the group arrives intact with their supplies at the castle on the North Sea, intent on finding a powerful, priceless book titled The Book of the Angel Raziel. Gilles is tight-lipped about the details of the mission, but everyone on the team has been promised a share of MacQueed’s treasures. As events progress, the journey’s true purpose is revealed and they all find their lives in danger. The novel brings a sense of authenticity to its details of medieval life, which is shown to have a vitality sorely missing in the present age. However, the characters offer flimsy justifications for accompanying Gilles, persuasive though he may be, considering the trip’s potential hazards. Scotsman Gilles’ “dinna ask me questions” approach will likely frustrate readers, as it seems obvious that the characters would demand answers before committing to such a venture. Overall, the story is intriguing but occasionally confusing, as viewpoints switch and present-day characters are matched to medieval counterparts. That said, the tale builds momentum to become an engaging, action-packed ensemble piece in its final chapters. By the end, Drake seems poised to be a hero, but Gilles wins the day with his stubborn dedication to his mission.
A well-told, if occasionally implausible, time-travel tale.Pub Date: March 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493174775
Page Count: 454
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2014
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
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
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