Significant, engaging Native-American history, sprinkled with a bit of Ian Fleming, make for an entertaining and...
A fiery, grim portrayal of the contest of wills over some of this country's most prized reservation territory.
Originally published in 1970, Abbott's historical novella brings to light the centuries-old conflict of territorial rights to the Black Hills of South Dakota, home to the widely-recognized landmarks Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower and Bear Butte, or what the Sioux refer to as Paha Sapa (literally, "the heart of everything that is"), sacred ground in a number of Native American traditions. Set mostly in the latter half of the 20th-century in a small, fictionalized Lakota town, the narrative seeks to expose the economic and racial challenges of reservation life by examining the interaction of a dozen or so rather unsavory characters from all walks of life. The sweeping sociology lesson in Native American afflictions–illustrated by the contrast between the upwardly mobile, power-seeking tribal leaders and the downward-spiraling criminally inclined poor–is rewarding in its own right. But what drives the story so compellingly is the fight for the Black Hills, 60 million acres of which were promised to the Sioux in 1851, reduced by two-thirds with the Treaty of Ft. Laramie in 1868, and then seized altogether in a new treaty enacted by Congress in 1877 upon Custer's discovery of gold. Abbott heightens the controversy–which continues to this day–by pitting those seeking to return the land to the Sioux against an invisible and malevolent enemy, HYDRA, a secret, elite society no doubt modeled on Marvel Comics' global-dominating villains of the same name. Though the narrative may lack technical sophistication, the captivating plot will engross and entertain.
Significant, engaging Native-American history, sprinkled with a bit of Ian Fleming, make for an entertaining and enlightening read.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9740718-0-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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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