The few historical stories, while a welcome change, seem mostly warm-ups for bigger works; in any case, the 80th edition of...
Dark’s perfunctory introduction to this year’s collection is right about one thing: there are a lot of deaths in the 20 stories selected by judges Michael Cunningham, Pam Houston, and George Saunders.
Tim Gautreaux, now a staple of such anthologies, strikes the one humorous note in the volume that gives top honors to John Wideman’s meditation on his mother’s death, a somber, almost schmaltzy, blues riff. Just when you thought, though, that it was safe to read annual anthologies without encountering Raymond Carver or his epigones, the editors include a posthumous piece by the daddy of minimalism himself, a tiresome tale of a dried-out alcoholic who renews himself after chopping a few chords of wood. The Atlantic Monthly, represented with three stories, wins the magazine honors, and Mary Gordon’s “The Deacon” well merits its third prize: it’s a smart profile of a righteous modern nun who learns the true meaning of loving those who we’re inclined not to. Melissa Pritchard’s “Salve Regina” also tangles with the church: a non-Catholic girl attends a convent school and sublimates her confused sexuality into passionate faith. Religion figures quite differently in Nathan Englander’s tale of a gentile investment banker who suddenly decides one day that he’s an Orthodox Jew, a decision with devastating practical consequences for his shiksa wife. But death sustains the longest note here: in Russell Banks’s “Plain of Abraham,” a construction foreman inadvertently causes the death of his former wife; in John Biguenet’s poignant “Rose,” a woman keeps a folder of computer-generated physical updates on her long-dead son; in Kate Walbert’s “The Gardens of Kyoto,” a woman remembers a cousin killed in the South Pacific; and in Alice Dark’s “Watch the Animals,” a snooty community comes together to respect and honor its most eccentric member as her death approaches.
The few historical stories, while a welcome change, seem mostly warm-ups for bigger works; in any case, the 80th edition of this fine series serves its basic function: it’s a window into the world of contemporary fiction.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-49877-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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