Offbeat, emotionally engaging, and authentic.
In Kraft’s romance, two quirky 20-somethings embrace each other’s weirdness.
Outlandish is an idyllic, whimsical beach town on the northern coast of California. Cars aren’t allowed; leisurely bicycling is encouraged; and fine dining is abundant. Archibald “Archie” Plumby has spent the entirety of his blissful but sheltered life within the cozy confines of Outlandish, writing for a local newspaper and eating at his mother’s upscale restaurant. Born with a rare phobia of looking up, Archie carries an umbrella with him everywhere and even has a crawl space–like bedroom with lowered ceilings. While dining alone in his mother’s restaurant at his special table (fashioned with a giant indoor umbrella), he meets Tallie Greenleaf, a young photographer visiting Outlandish with her boss, famous photojournalist Gemma Perrelli. Though Archie is shy and constantly at war with his frequent panic attacks, Tallie’s warm demeanor puts him at ease, and they quickly become friends. As they grow closer, however, Archie suspects ulterior motives from Ms. Perrelli after she discloses her fascination with young adults in love. Kraft’s (Ingrid, 2014, etc.) novel is a quick, absorbing read full of thought-provoking dialogue and warm moments between not only Archie and Tallie, but Archie and his parents as well. Accompanying the text are full-color illustrations and an original soundtrack of dramatic instrumentals. These imaginative add-ons work to create the unique atmosphere of Outlandish. While the narrative of young love between two people who feel somewhat alienated from “normal” life is tender, what stands out is the insistence of Archie’s parents that his condition not be seen as a disability but rather as a special and defining character trait that should be celebrated.
Offbeat, emotionally engaging, and authentic.Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9911109-2-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: New Wrinkle Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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