A seaworthy story of love and unhappiness.
Brock (In this Hospitable Land, 2011, etc.) returns with a junior naval officer’s alternately romantic and tragic romp around Europe with his French lady love.
Thorp Karnin, an ensign in the U.S. Navy, is an unsympathetic leading man. He’s handsome, educated, motivated and charming. He’s also arrogant, cocky and self-involved. This combination of characteristics provides the foundation for an engaging and multifaceted protagonist who is both appealing and appalling. Brock’s novel, spanning several European countries, revolves around the relationship of Karnin and Geneviève Blondin, a young French woman touring Europe on her own for the first time. Geneviève (Genny) is beautiful and naïve, completely taken by Karnin’s charm and confidence. The couple embarks on a whirlwind romance, meeting first in Naples and again in Cannes. Yet just as Karnin inevitably begins to lose interest (conveniently when he is to ship out), Genny discovers she is pregnant with his child. Aboard the USS Spencer his competence and brains have earned Karnin a promotion, but he is not well-liked or trusted and he refuses to take his responsibilities seriously. Events physically come to a head when the Spencer collides with a British merchant ship during Karnin’s watch. Although the ship manages to limp toward port, there are numerous fatalities. Seemingly troubled only by self-interest, Karnin is quick to throw blame elsewhere, while sailors all around him struggle to come to grips with the horrible accident. The city of Gibraltar provides the setting for the final scenes, as Karnin must face both an inquiry and his feelings for Genny. Brock artfully creates suspense as he narrates Karnin’s interactions with Genny and his fellow officers. He subtly hints at tragic events, providing the reader with just enough foreshadowing to build the drama. In addition, Brock’s beautifully crafted descriptions of Mediterranean scenery— a view “ringed by the mountains leaping up from the water and crowned by orange and lemon groves”—provide a stunning backdrop to the story of romance and tragedy.
A seaworthy story of love and unhappiness.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2011
ISBN: 978-1453698594
Page Count: 328
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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