In the fourth of Arceneaux’s (Ransom Island, 2014, etc.) Gulf Coast thriller series, a 15-year-old athlete hopes to clear his professional boxing pal of a murder charge.
1962 is a year of change for both Charlie Sweetwater and his home country of America. While the Cuban missile crisis has citizens fearing nuclear war, he revels in young love, courtesy of Carmen Delfín. But Charlie confronts his share of challenges, too. Stubby Hunsacker, owner of the Texas boxing gym where Charlie and older brother Johnny regularly train, turns up dead, apparently murdered. Cops arrest Cuban boxer Jesse Martel, Carmen’s uncle. For some people, the case is cut and dried—it’s seemingly evident that a person of color has killed a white man. At the same time, agents from an (initially) unnamed organization question Jesse’s loyalty to the U.S. But Charlie and Johnny believe in Jesse’s innocence. There’s no shortage of others who may have killed Stubby, including thuggish Miami promoters wanting to sponsor Jesse, as well as Jesse’s shady friend, Ramón Cruz, who the brothers suspect is a spy for Cuba. And to make certain Jesse steers clear of death row, Charlie and Johnny may have to find the murderer themselves. Arceneaux’s story is a smashing blend of a coming-of-age tale and a suspenseful thriller. Charlie may say goodbye to his virginity, and the high school sophomore makes the varsity football team. Ominous events, however, occur simultaneously: before the murder even happens, the gym gets hit with a break-in, an office is trashed, and there’s an explosion. The author can take readers from Charlie’s teenage perspective to a state of panic with ease: the brothers’ worry that they’re late to an early-morning workout is quickly offset when they spot Mafioso types roughing up Stubby. Sure, Charlie earns reader sympathy right away when he suffers the brunt of Karl McDevitt’s bullying at the gym. But it’s his actions that make him laudable and not just his tireless support of Jesse. When he stands up to Carmen’s mom, who clearly disapproves of her daughter’s palurdo (hick) boyfriend, it’s something to be admired.
Charlie eventually gets his shot in the ring, but the selfless, obstinate protagonist is already a champ.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9968797-1-2
Page Count: 270
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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