A quiet novel of medicine and personal growth.
In Goetz’s (Bending the Twig, 2002) novel, a doctor is torn between his ambitions for groundbreaking research and his commitment to providing medical care in a rural community.
Goetz’s narrative follows Martin Cromlech from childhood in the 1960s through medical school to a successful career. After his sister Jenny’s death—attributed to physician error—motivates him to go into family practice in his Nebraska hometown, Martin sets off for medical school, where his skill and intelligence conflict with his disdain for the traditional curriculum and his impatience with his professors. A short-lived romance with classmate Diana is his only extracurricular activity. The book then moves ahead to the late 1970s; Martin is a star researcher in Chicago, drawing attention for his work treating hypertension while still wondering if he should practice medicine back home. A conflict with the new head of Martin’s lab, whose data and results Martin does not trust, as well as the reappearance of married but separated Diana finally push Martin into making a decision about where he belongs. The book delivers a compelling portrait of its place and time, and readers with medical backgrounds will enjoy the attention given to first-year dissections and the conversations among researchers discussing details of their work. Despite his early arrogance and lack of direction, Martin never becomes a truly unlikable character, and his redemption is effected through his fight for scientific truth and the humility he learns as he renews his relationship with Diana. The bulk of the narrative is character-driven, the plot taking lead toward the end as the conflict between researchers drives the story. The prose can be unpolished, with awkward phrasing—“Steady Alex Koenig…had even managed a small philosophical grin when an angry patient with wide-spread cancer fouled him with her feces”—and interactions that fall flat, including a cringe-worthy depiction of Japanese scientists: “Herro, Dr. Cromrech.” At other times, the prose is simply florid: “In his dark bedroom, drifting in that blurred margin between wakefulness and sleep, Martin James Cromlech fancied he heard, measured and far away, the spirit of Henry David Thoreau rhythmically applauding.”
A quiet novel of medicine and personal growth.Pub Date: May 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5089-7333-1
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 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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