In this debut Old West novel, set in 1880 in the Arizona Territory, the wars with Native Americans have mainly ended, but the prejudice and violence against them still thrive.
Juan Ruben Tellez de Santiago, an aging Navajo, and Morgan Braddock, his business partner, ride to Esther Corbin’s farm a few miles outside of Chasm Creek in search of fresh water and some shade from the desert heat. Morgan is sick; Esther is the mother of four, managing the farm alone while her husband, Howard, is away. She is frightened and picks up her shotgun to warn the strangers to leave. But the weapon goes off accidentally, and Morgan is hit with some buckshot. Guilt-stricken, Esther offers the travelers overnight refuge until Morgan can heal. Within the first three pages, Cox has introduced her three main characters. The two men are here to execute Morgan’s latest plan. Ruben will make a deal with renegade Apaches to round up wild horses; the duo will break them; and Morgan will sell them to the Army soldiers stationed at nearby Fort McDowell. Esther agrees to rent the pair her farm, moving with her children into town to stay at her brother’s currently unused house. Unfortunately, her brother, Jacob Tillinghast, the mescal-drinking, goat-loving town marshal, finds an old poster proclaiming that Morgan is “Wanted for Murder” in the territory of New Mexico. There’s already plenty of material at this point for the coming excitement. But the real drama of this novel involves the heartbreaking backstories of Morgan and Ruben, their friendship, and the relationships that develop between each of them and Esther. Hope and tragedy alternate throughout pages suffused with pathos. Native American mysticism mingles with Western violence as the past haunts the present in a twisting plotline. And the visceral prose is evocative of the dry Southwestern landscape: “They maneuvered around cactus and thorny brush and switch-backed up the steep slope, headed for a saddle between two peaks. The ground was thick with prickly pear, and stands of saguaro cactus towered above him.”
This engaging narrative with memorable characters features supernatural overtones that lead to an unsettling finale.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9993375-0-9
Page Count: 290
Publisher: IRW Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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