Southern charm, mystery-lite and the details of theater life converge in Shaffer’s likable third novel (Ladies of Garrison...
A pleasant excursion into the heart and soul of theater life involving two women who become the mysterious inheritors of an old opera house.
When Katie and Randa receive letters from a Georgia lawyer informing them they are the beneficiaries in a will, it seems the two have no connection—Katie is a native New Yorker and a scriptwriter for the soap her mother made famous, and Miranda is a business manager for spoiled Hollywood actors. But after a few days together in Georgia, the two find what has always eluded them—family history. Helped by the strange coincidences uniting them (both are named for Shakespearean characters, both were raised by a single parent, an actor), the two women form a tentative bond as they discover they are the new owners of the Venable Opera House, a 100-year-old theater that was once the pride of now-run-down Massonville. They are enchanted by the beautiful building, but plan on selling the money pit to Mike Killian, who’ll soon tear it down to make way for condos. Can Katie and Randa really let that happen? Randa’s 11-year-old daughter Susie is betting not, and has found the theater’s history in hopes that sentimentality will win out over business sense. Half of the novel traces the not altogether happy rise of the Venable clan, a family of actors, drinkers, tough ladies and louts who managed to keep the theater running for nearly a century. Matriarch Juliet acquired the theater under criminal circumstances, her son-in-law Edward kept it going in the Depression by playing the same hammy part his whole life (and keeping his homosexual affairs discreet), while Olivia stole from her children to keep it going in the ’70s. Though essential for solving the mystery of Katie and Randa’s benefactor, the Venable flashbacks are the novel’s weak spot, lacking the color and detail of the periods in which they’re set. Nevertheless, Shaffer (Ladies of Garrison Garden, 2005, etc.) has a nice touch with characters and the feel-good ending doesn’t disappoint.
Southern charm, mystery-lite and the details of theater life converge in Shaffer’s likable third novel (Ladies of Garrison Garden, 2005, etc.).Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6063-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2007
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
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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