A sometimes-vivid but ultimately forgettable glimpse into the coal-mining industry and the men and women who work in it, due...
This gritty debut novel, set in the fictitious southern Appalachian town of Coalton, chronicles the mundanities and political machinations of life in a coal-mining community.
Itkonen’s storyline doesn’t follow any one particular character as much as it does the unfolding events in a small town and its surroundings. The diverse cast features a wide range of people, including train-riding hoboes looking for work in the mines, a morally bankrupt coal-company CEO who will do anything to make his mines productive, and his disgruntled employees plotting revenge. Larry Miller, the head of the International Coal Company, Inc., is arguably the most fully realized and intriguing character in the book, as much of the plot revolves around his unethical actions to make his company more profitable. They include creating false documents to steal land from a beloved local businessman, gaining permit approvals from an Army Corps of Engineers regional director by using illegal drugs, and placing a spy in his own mines to ferret out pro-union workers. However, the overall story becomes a bit contrived when a group of Russian gangsters infiltrates the town, with a plan to kidnap and ransom one or both of Miller’s daughters. Indeed, the lack of a clear, identifiable plot thread throughout markedly muddles the narrative momentum and, with so many two-dimensional characters, it makes the novel a difficult one to get into. The novel is well-written and vividly imagined, with some passages that immerse readers in the story: “Most mornings brought fresh air to Coalton, as cool and clean mountain air descended from the weathered peaks that encircled the town, flushing the stale and dusty atmosphere downhill to Virginia.” However, its lack of sympathetic main characters ends up making it a strangely detached, emotionally flat reading experience. In the end, the rich backdrop of the rural coal town—with its abject poverty, black market moonshine, brothels and Pentecostal churches—is more memorable than the cast of characters that inhabit it.
A sometimes-vivid but ultimately forgettable glimpse into the coal-mining industry and the men and women who work in it, due to superficial characterization.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495968310
Page Count: 458
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2015
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
