A witty and thought-provoking debut, with an imperfect though endearing heroine whose flaws are not tragic but very human.
The story of Macbeth’s downfall told from the point of view of the title character, a young girl out to avenge her father’s murder.
Since early childhood, Gilly has lived in Birnam Wood with Nettle and Mad Helga, who scrounge out a livelihood concocting herbal remedies and scavenging among the battlefield dead. Adolescent Gilly fancies herself “an arrow of vengeance” aimed at Macbeth, whom she blames for the destruction of her original family. She nags the kindly old women until finally Helga promises she will help bring down Macbeth if Gilly can bring her three pieces of his heart. Full of self-importance and hate, Gilly sets out. She pretends to be a boy to get work into the kitchen of Macbeth’s castle and plot his destruction. She also befriends Banquo’s studious son Fleance and good King Duncan’s handsome son Malcolm. Sneaking into the couple’s chamber, she overhears a conversation between Macbeth and his wife, who the reader will not be surprised to learn is Gilly’s mother. Realizing the “three pieces” of Macbeth’s heart are his loyalty to the king, his love of his wife, and his longing to be king himself, Gilly returns to Birnam Wood and goads Nettle and Helga into a meeting with Macbeth in which they will pretend to foresee his future. Back at the castle, she witnesses Duncan’s death and helps Malcolm get away, then unsuccessfully tries to save Banquo and manages to rescue Fleance. Her sense of responsibility for these deaths and that of Lady Macduff, who showed her great affection, gnaws at Gilly's conscience, but she steels herself against emotion. Finally, Macbeth comes to ruin, and Lady Macbeth in her madness shares with Gilly her version of their family tragedy. To playwright Reisert’s credit, the parallels between the avenging lass and her enemies are not lost on Gilly any more than on the reader.
A witty and thought-provoking debut, with an imperfect though endearing heroine whose flaws are not tragic but very human.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7434-1771-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Washington Square/Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
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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