A suspenseful and moving look at the moral plight of American slaves.
Two young slaves in Mississippi escape their ruthless owner with proof he committed a crime in this debut historical novel.
Ben Douglas, the owner of the Mary Dale plantation, arranges for the sale of his property and the manumission of his slaves upon his demise. But after Ben dies, Col. James Pritchard fraudulently claims to be a cousin of Ben’s late wife and takes possession of the property, slaves and all, in 1851. Will Douglas, a teenage slave who had been with Ben since he was 13 years old, finds the will—he can read and write—and realizes his knowledge of Pritchard’s misdeed puts his life in danger. Will escapes with his best friend, Tom, and the two make their way by boat to St. Louis with a considerable pile of cash purloined from the plantation and legal documents that prove Ben’s intentions. Pritchard dispatches his henchman to track them down, and everywhere Will and Tom go is vigilantly policed by slave hunters, perilous circumstances powerfully depicted by Steinmann. Will makes the acquaintance of Abraham Bireman, an attorney, who handles his legal case while making arrangements for the slaves to flee their pursuers. Meanwhile, Will’s lifelong companion, Teeny, is given by Pritchard to a lawyer, Richard Walther, who intends to make her his “fancy girl” and produce a child with her. Teeny is horrified by his coarse advances but wants to keep the child that is the result of them. Bireman arranges for her to escape north, donning a disguise that makes her look 20 years older. In this gripping tale, the author poignantly captures the volatility of a country cleaved over the issue of slavery. As a reverend warns Will and Tom: “Be careful…this country is coming apart. The closer it gets to splitting in half, the crazier people are going to act.” Will and Teeny are memorable protagonists—both resourceful and brave and drawn with artful empathy. In addition, Steinmann provides a picture of the abolitionist movement that is as historically authentic as it is thrillingly dramatic.
A suspenseful and moving look at the moral plight of American slaves.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-941478-56-1
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Windy City Publisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 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
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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