Gent tries to do for college basketball what he did for pro football in North Dallas Forty (1973) and The Franchise (1983): blow the lid off the cynicism and corruption festering behind the scenes. But that lid's been off a long time, and this turgid effort brings nothing new to an old story. Lapsed idealist Pat Lee, ``recruiting coach'' at Southwestern State in Dallas, finds his job on the line when a coed is raped by star center Chuck Small. Small had threatened to declare his eligibility for the NBA draft, and coach Barry Sand, Lee's one-time friend, charges him with using the covered-up rape as leverage to convince Small to stay. Failing that, Lee had better sign high- school sensation Eddie Sanford, a seven-footer whose mother Lee has been coincidentally hitting on in a hotel bar. Sand, who will do anything to make the Final Four, also orders Lee to join the bidding war for Jamail Jenks, whose high-school coach, O.K. Free, demands his own share: ``It wasn't wrong, it was just against the rules.'' Gent uses lengthy flashbacks to Lee's golden youth in 1950's and 60's small-town America to show that, despite his acquiescence, Lee may still be able to recapture his lost innocence. When the coed is found hanging in her dorm room, and when a guilt-ridden policeman who's helping Lee is found ``blown away'' in his squad car, Lee decides ``to bring them all down.'' That includes drug-store mogul Sam Watts, whose monogrammed, money- filled envelopes turn up in more than one pocket. Lee wins the day by substituting crime scene stills for the expected game highlights at a press conference, thus embarrassing Sand and Watts, getting the school placed on probation, and Small throw in jail. All the usual suspects, and their attendant vices. Predictable and obvious.
Pub Date: March 14, 1994
ISBN: 1-55611-384-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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