A novel that carefully presents an unusual situation, offering plenty of poignant moments along the way.
In Eklund’s debut novel, a middle-aged cancer patient discovers a startling secret about her family while searching for information about her past.
After enduring an abusive childhood and, later, her own divorce, Jenna Waring pursued a successful career in social work; raised her son, Drew; and got happily married to her high school sweetheart. Now, as she approaches 50, her life is upended by a devastating diagnosis: stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As she begins the process of arranging treatment, telling the news to her family, and coming to terms with her condition, she’s buoyed by a new source of happiness—a previously unknown 3-year-old granddaughter named Violet. Jenna made the discovery through a DNA-sequencing service that listed them as close relatives. After corresponding with Violet’s mother, Maddy Kansel, Jenna learns that Violet was conceived using an anonymous sperm donor, who turns out to be Jenna’s son. Jenna has tremendous love for her son, but because of Drew’s reserved nature and difficulty expressing emotion, their relationship is somewhat delicate. Out of fear about Maddy’s motives, Drew forbids his mother from having any further contact with Violet. Jenna must now determine whether she can have a relationship with her granddaughter without driving her son away while knowing that her time left with her family is limited. Over the course of the novel, hints of magical realism, in the form of prophetic dreams, lend the story a mysterious quality and draw focus to considerations of the afterlife. Eklund’s treatment of the moral, social, and legal implications of DNA-sharing technology is also balanced and thought-provoking. Even more striking is the presentation of Jenna’s condition; her progression of emotions, from dismay to resolve and much in between, is relatable, and she retains an admirable humor and warmth of character throughout. The supporting cast, which includes Jenna’s husband, Sam; her best friend, Eric; and her beloved sister, Mary Grace, is fairly well conceived. However, the most stirring scenes are those between Jenna and Violet, as the elder woman rediscovers some of herself in her young granddaughter.
A novel that carefully presents an unusual situation, offering plenty of poignant moments along the way.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-983581-34-2
Page Count: 391
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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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