An amusing, occasionally sobering look at how evil can spring from unexpected wells.
A humorous debut novel about the surprising consequences of one man’s intense distaste for olives.
Grak, a moody, misunderstood member of a group of egalitarian nomads, suffers from a “severe and unusual hatred of olives.” That, in turn, means he doesn’t like Lago, the tribe’s cook, who adds the fruit to all the dishes he makes. To get back at Lago, Grak utters a small and seemingly innocent lie. Yet that spur-of-the-moment falsehood leads to other lies, and soon Lago is banished after being falsely accused of poisoning the group’s food. Before long, Grak, through a combination of cleverness and dumb luck, installs himself as the group’s leader—a previously vacant and unnecessary position. He then proceeds to manipulate his friends, seek vengeance on his perceived enemies and generally turn what was once a happy, thriving tribe into a starving, dysfunctional group ruled by a despot with a shaky grip on reality, as revealed in Grak’s increasingly unhinged internal monologue. Story’s quirky novel commendably shows how easily evil can take root and flourish. The setting may be pre-modern, but Grak’s behavior is immediately recognizable as the wounded posturing of the schoolyard bully. This thoroughly unlikable protagonist is driven not by a thirst for power or riches but by his own inability to trust others. Early on, he wonders: “What is this deviousness? Was she a part of this? Did they plan it together…out of their mutual resentment toward me?” Even when his tribe is at the brink of ruin and he’s publicly executing those who dare to question him, Grak sees himself as a victim. Friendly overtures are misread as insults, while offhand remarks are evidence of sinister plots against him. Often, the results of these misunderstandings are blackly comic. Grak’s downfall is inevitable (if a long time coming), but what’s more troubling is that even though he eventually loses power and sees the error of his ways, he has taught those around him how to use fear and violence as tools of subjugation.
An amusing, occasionally sobering look at how evil can spring from unexpected wells.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990749301
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Paper Newt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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