More successful as history than fiction, which should intrigue readers with an interest in Oregon’s past.
Inspired by real-life pioneers, Marlen’s (Inside the Hatboxes, 2008, etc.) historical novel offers an unflinching look at life on the Oregon frontier.
Disgraced alcoholic physician William Bailey arrives in Oregon Country in 1835 hoping that life on the wild edge of North America might tame his demons. He quickly builds a life for himself among the Native Americans and French fur trappers along the banks of the Willamette River. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Margaret Jewett Bailey struggles to reconcile her Methodist faith with her fiery passions. Her restlessness inspires her to “sacrifice every earthly object” and become a missionary. Against her family’s objections, she makes the arduous journey to Oregon. There, she falls in love with William, and these two troubled, difficult people struggle to make a life together in a harsh, unforgiving environment. Marlen’s story is inspired by historical events: William was an early political leader in Oregon; Margaret wrote a thinly veiled autobiography, the first novel published in the region. Research is extensive (photographs and copies of Margaret’s letters accompany the text), and Marlen carefully marries historical truths with the fictional embellishments. Yet attempts to accurately depict the past occasionally veer toward the didactic, as when, on their wedding day, Bailey pauses to define an unfamiliar local term for Margaret: “Do you know about [a capote]?...It’s a coat made from a wool blanket. All the French Canadian trappers use them; they’re usually made from a Hudson’s Bay Company point blankets.” Extensive back story in the first half causes the book to drag: Margaret and William don’t meet until the book’s midpoint, and their courtship is brief and hurried. Their married life gets more attention, and this is no sugarcoated view of frontier romance. William’s Jekyll-and-Hyde personality—kind and thoughtful when sober, cruel and violent when drunk—dooms the relationship. After years of abuse, Margaret files for divorce, a bold move that mirrors her earlier efforts to escape her controlling father. She may be headstrong and selfish, but her fiery independence serves her well in an environment where the old rules don’t survive.
More successful as history than fiction, which should intrigue readers with an interest in Oregon’s past.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0977975280
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sunbird Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
