A quick, sometimes-frustrating read that may inspire in-depth conversation but that’s compromised by rambling verbosity.
Miller (Guilty or Innocent, 2011, etc.) jumps into the 2020 presidential race with a new and unusual fictional candidate.
A man named Harold, who admits to being “a screwball in a novel,” introduces himself as a 73-year-old man who’s obsessed with the idea of running for president in the next election. As the story opens, it’s “November 9, 2016. Trump won.” Although Harold realizes that he himself is “a nobody,” he figures that Trump’s victory means that he could also be “a valid candidate.” Before plunging into his policies, Harold warns readers that he’s the creation of an author who “may have some…type of aberration, himself.” One of Harold’s signature issues is the plight of the homeless. He theorizes that the answer to that problem and other “issues of concern to all of us” lies in better communication among the citizenry of the United States. To that end, Harold is an advocate of free speech “with absolutely no reservation or qualification.” If what you say or write doesn’t result in physical harm, it’s OK, he says. Even social media postings that threaten violence should be allowed, he asserts, because then we “have a chance to do something about it.” He also says that although he doesn’t agree with football players who take a knee in protest, he fully supports “their right to do so.” He’s for abortion rights and also favors state right-to-die laws. His solution to the immigration problem? Allow other countries to apply for U.S. statehood. Miller’s character is a self-deprecating gadfly who, as a presidential contender, seems designed to alternatingly please and offend readers—and in this, he’ll likely succeed. The author delivers Harold’s platform in uncomplicated prose that’s sometimes humorous. However, it also frequently slides into stream-of-consciousness rambling, which obscures his message: “So, you can read on if you wish….But you should realize that I don’t really make much sense realistically…. And further, if you took this seriously and wanted to nominate me for president, I would refuse point blank.” The candidate proposes a judicial system based on rehabilitation, to effect “a change in the lives and motivations of the criminal.” Release from prison shouldn’t be based upon time served, he says, but rather on the prisoner’s “working out the problem and changing.” At the same time, he believes that victims of crimes resulting in serious bodily injury should be able to get revenge for closure. In this way, his political positions defy classification. One minute he appears to be compassionate and concerned about social problems; the next, he seems infuriatingly obtuse. He opposes #MeToo, for instance, because he believes that it could lead to “the end of the right of [the] accused to defend himself.” He dismisses the idea of woman being “bothered in her mind all her life because a man touched her.” The victim, he asserts, “should learn to accept the innate terribleness of life.”
A quick, sometimes-frustrating read that may inspire in-depth conversation but that’s compromised by rambling verbosity.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-359-44586-8
Page Count: 91
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 17, 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
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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