An inventive farce waylaid by excessive absurdity and a sprawling cast.
Starkman’s (Great Places to Learn, 2006, etc.) debut novel features a postal carrier named Cleve and a coterie of eccentric neighbors who attempt to solve a series of bizarre local mysteries.
There is no normalcy in Eaton; the small Midwestern town is overrun with the most eccentric of eccentrics, including an octogenarian who trains her dogs to make tea and a corrupt, diminutive mayor whose quarterly parties would make Pope Alexander VI blush. There is, however, a relative status quo in Eaton, which is disrupted when an absurd foreign conflict divides the town, and a sniper seems bent on snuffing out its letter carriers. Cleve’s levelheaded investigation into these dramas form the crux of the novel, and from it unfolds some rather sharp observations about civil responsibility, small-town prejudices and the widespread jingoism that results from U.S. military campaigns. It is in these allegorical moments that the rollicking plot finds its stride and comes closest to justifying its large, zany cast. Yet, as Cleve digs deeper into some shady connections, the once-enjoyable eccentricities of the cast and the oddities of their town begin to distract as much as they delight. Starkman is overly attentive to minor characters and relies on unnatural exposition, testing readers’ patience in the novel’s second half. This unfortunately makes waste of some great dialogue and distracts from what should have been the novel’s best asset: Eaton and its people. When Cleve finally connects the dots, readers might think that the author is stretching to do the same considering the many digressions of the novel and its bloated cast. At its heart, this is a whimsical and funny novel with the potential to both amuse readers with wild characters and to keep them intrigued with an inventive plot. Unfortunately, the two amusements often seem mutually exclusive, as the comedy bounds between local laughs and global happenings without finding a good regional balance.
An inventive farce waylaid by excessive absurdity and a sprawling cast.Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2011
ISBN: 978-1467992305
Page Count: 276
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2012
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
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