by Michael Patrick ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2018
A lively cross-cultural story about a rapidly expanding America, but it’s hindered by a weak third act.
In Patrick’s (On the Beat, 2011) historical novel, a young American man marries a beautiful Chinese woman at the dawn of the railway era in the West.
Edwin Stratton grew up on an Iowa farm, but after his biological parents died young, he was raised by his stepmother, Lorraine. In 1870, after turning 18, he sets out for Omaha, Nebraska, with his horse, Ross, and no clear plans for the future. He soon lands a job as a German-English translator at a hospital and secures a second gig working for the police after doing some translation work for them on a case. He also becomes acquainted with the leadership of Omaha’s Chinatown; he becomes interested in learning the Chinese language, and he makes an offer to the Chinese leaders to teach English in exchange. This leads him to meet Mu Waun, a pretty, young teacher; they fall in love and plan to marry. Unfortunately, she and her family are called back to China to settle a dispute in their home village, and Edwin prepares for a long wait for her return. After he gets news that village violence has claimed Mu Waun’s life, he relocates to Utah to become a telegraph operator and station manager. Later, he receives word that Mu Waun may actually be alive, and he sets out on a journey across the ocean with two Chinese compatriots to rescue her. Patrick’s novel intriguingly uses the protagonist’s love of foreign languages to advance his career, social standing, and marriage prospects. His skills as a polyglot help him to foil train robberies, fend off foreign assassins, and join an insular Chinese community. As a result, the storytelling can be compelling; Edwin’s journey home from China is a particular standout. However, because the story covers so many decades of Edwin’s life, the final third of the novel loses steam and becomes somewhat cursory. An earlier ending would have better highlighted Edwin and Mu Waun’s travels and accomplishments.
A lively cross-cultural story about a rapidly expanding America, but it’s hindered by a weak third act.Pub Date: March 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-2386-1
Page Count: 306
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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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
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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