Erotic tale about the pleasures and pitfalls of swinging and swapping, with enticing dialogue and a disappointing finale.
A bickering African-American couple is amusingly unfaithful in author Whitehall’s frisky debut novel.
Accountant Maia and attorney Michael Henderson live with their two children, Andrea, 13, and Tre, 9, in Bowie, Maryland. At lunch, Maia’s friend Diane informs her that Michael is cheating. At 5 feet 5 inches tall and 235 pounds, Maia has become undesirable to her relatively fit husband, who’s always looking for a “side piece.” Maia’s married boss, Andrew “Drew” Neal, has an eye for her and, sensing she’s unhappy, makes his move only to be rejected. Michael’s infidelity is multilayered. In addition to making it with a potential employee, he’s flirting online at Blackconnections.net, has the occasional fling with one of Maia’s girlfriends and, with a co-worker, visits a club called Xxtasy. Here’s a steamy story of yet another husband and wife—told from their alternating perspectives—who are affluent (she carries a Coach bag and wears Gucci pumps) and restless in their marriage. It’s a familiar story with a fresh take, peppered with zippy, humorous dialogue primarily about sex, as when frustrated Maia informs her husband that she’s “dick deprived.” Proud, possessive Michael is saddled by a Madonna/whore complex: He thinks a wife should behave, so he looks for rough and wild elsewhere. Dutiful Maia is the compliant wife; weary of the missionary position, she finds solace in Twinkies, turning to vibrator Bunny as her man loses interest. The title moniker applies to both husband and wife. Maia, on advice from a friend, sets a “honey trap,” adopting an online persona to expose Michael’s infidelity, and she eventually indulges in a cheater’s game. The escalating situation between husband and wife, which puts their marriage at risk, captivates more than Michael or Maia, who become increasingly tiresome in their complaints. A standout character is bold, brash swinger Nina Laussat, new to town and looking for work. She plays with Michael and Maia, both together and separately, voicing dismay at Michael’s lack of stamina and Maia’s take-without-giving approach. One significant downer: After pages of buildup, the book ends abruptly with the click of a phone. It’s a less than satisfying climax, but there’s always Bunny.
Erotic tale about the pleasures and pitfalls of swinging and swapping, with enticing dialogue and a disappointing finale.Pub Date: March 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493189250
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 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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