New York attorney Heller’s second novel (The Love Wars, 2013) is a triumph of witty dialogue and characters as true to life...
The prodigal daughter returns after 20 years, but the happy Reinhardts aren’t sure what to do with her gloomy presence in this sly fiction about families.
Paige is a bit ambivalent about the big news—Sloane is coming to Manhattan for a visit. She hasn’t had contact with her older sister in two decades, since Sloane ran away from a ritzy rehab at 16. Mother Vanessa is guardedly optimistic that they may be a family again, while father Frank is treating the event as he does most: in a state of genial oblivion. Paige’s husband, Dave, has weightier concerns—his law firm has suspended him for a few weeks, and they (or he) won’t say why. For a striving workaholic, this is a death sentence, but Paige’s response is heavy on suspicion and light on sympathy. (How embarrassing for her, considering that she’s a therapist.) When sullen Sloane arrives, she has little interest in reconnecting with her parents, but Paige she likes. And Paige is shocked to meet Sloane’s traveling companion, fiance Giovanni, who is charming and bright, and their little dog, Bandito, who accompanies them as they visit chic eateries for Sloane’s travel blog. The myth of Sloane encompassed so much catastrophe that Paige is a bit surprised to befriend a fairly normal, if occasionally moody, real person. Begging out of their summer outings, Dave becomes increasingly distant, and Paige is convinced he’s involved with some illegal shenanigans. Paige hires Giovanni’s best friend, Percy (she calls him the Adonis), to use his skills as private investigator to ferret out the truth—though she won’t be happy when she gets it. Thankfully, she now has her big sister’s shoulder to cry on.
New York attorney Heller’s second novel (The Love Wars, 2013) is a triumph of witty dialogue and characters as true to life as your best friends.Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-451-41624-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: New American Library
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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