A feel-bad novel with an unsympathetic narrator.
In this debut novel, a 30-something man reviews his dysfunctional marriage to a vegan woman and its tragic ending.
For Mason McLaughlin, who grew up in the state of New Jersey, New York City is “where the magic happens!” He lives and works there as a software programmer, and still loves it, he says, “in spite of what has happened to me here.” Over the course of the novel, he relates exactly what happened to him. He was in love with proofreader Katherine Flanagan, but their four-year relationship broke up because he wanted to get married and have children, and she didn’t. About a year after the breakup, Mason started dating an attractive woman named Tessa Andersson, the vice president of the audit division at his workplace. They didn’t agree on everything; Mason found her veganism annoying, for example, and Tessa thought that he drank too much with his friends. (For him, six drinks was only one too many.) Still, Mason went along with what Tessa wanted to do—rising early on weekends to explore new places, for example, although he actually wanted to stay home and relax. He soon moved in with her, despite their weekly arguments, and when she accidentally got pregnant, Mason was delighted. He proposed marriage after she strongly hinted that she wanted him to do so. When their baby, Noah, was born, Mason adored being a father, but he and Tessa still fought constantly. She didn’t want to have Noah vaccinated, when he gained weight too slowly and lost strength, she refused to feed him formula—even a soy-based one. Couples counseling didn’t help them. Then a terrible tragedy ensued, followed by a jury trial, but at his nadir, Mason got a phone call from Katherine that gave him hope. Mascarenhas effectively captures the drinking-buddy culture of his narrator, as well as the atmosphere of New York City; for instance, the bed in Mason’s tiny apartment is apparently only seven steps from the door. However, much is troubling about the narrator’s characterization. The novel often reassures readers that he’s a catch, with other characters mentioning nearly a dozen times that he’s “handsome”; Tessa, who isn’t he only co-worker to be interested in Mason, tells him, “I have done some major research on you in the office and the report came out A+.” But what this report is based on is unclear, as Mason comes across as passive, incurious, and largely devoid of personality, with no interests beyond drinking, playing video games, and watching TV. He’s also inconsiderate of others: “She had warned me about using a condom when we had sex, but I never listened.” Worst of all, Mason ignores his fears about Noah in the face of Tessa’s unreasonable behavior: “She would always find a way to shut me up.” Late in the novel, when he credits Noah for reconnecting him with Katherine— as if it’s the silver lining of a very dark cloud—it feels both sentimental and horrid.
A feel-bad novel with an unsympathetic narrator.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949002-01-0
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2019
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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