A sleek and subversive thriller that should appeal to readers who enjoy edgy fiction.
A chance encounter sends two strangers on a wild ride through the streets of Los Angeles, where the stakes are high.
In this thriller, Friday evening means a night of hard partying for Brooke. The spoiled trust fund daughter of actor Danny Ryan, she spends her days lost in a haze of absinthe and coke, hopping from one hot Los Angeles area night spot to the next and documenting her exploits on social media. She ends up at the Doheny Room, where she parties with her friend Ashley and Ashley’s boyfriend, Jared. While Brooke enjoys her evening, an actor named Chase hooks up with Melissa, a young waitress. A former bartender plucked from obscurity, Chase gained fame starring on a teen TV drama called All That Glitters. He believes Melissa may be “The One,” until he murders her. A serial killer, Chase targets the bartenders, servers, and waitresses of Hollywood’s trendiest restaurants and nightclubs. The next night, Brooke and Chase meet by chance when they share the same Uber. After Brooke casually invites Chase to join her, they embark on an odyssey that begins with the search for drugs and ends with an unforgettable house party. The latest novel from Adam (Keep Santa Monica Clean, 2016, etc.) is a twisty and transgressive tale of two jaded and troubled strangers discovering an unlikely connection. On the surface, Brooke appears to be a shallow party girl whose only concern is how she appears on Snapchat or Instagram. But the author subtly adds an undercurrent of vulnerability and emptiness to her glamorous facade, particularly in her references to the “stranger wearing my face.” Chase is a multifaceted and compelling protagonist and villain. A successful actor and aspiring screenwriter, he chooses his victims based on his past as a bartender and nostalgia for the lifestyle. Adam’s sharp and economical prose is punctuated by moments of acerbic humor. When asked by his psychiatrist if he thinks he is insane, Chase replies, “No, I’m a television actor.”
A sleek and subversive thriller that should appeal to readers who enjoy edgy fiction.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64606-948-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Post-Entropy
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2018
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
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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