Parry's first hardcover launches the latter-day equivalent of a dime-novel series featuring an errant naif (Wyatt Earp's bastard son) and a worldly-wise sidekick who muddle through antic adventures on turn-of-the-century America's vanishing frontiers. Upon turning 16 in 1898, Nathan Blaylock (who has been raised in a Denver orphanage run by Catholic nuns) learns that his mother Mattie died ten years earlier. Before expiring, however, the former dancehall girl wrote a letter promising young Nathan $20,000 if he could kill the legendary lawman who fathered him and then abandoned her. A rank tenderfoot, Nathan is fortunate enough to join forces with Jim Riley, a down-on-his-luck gunslinger who agrees to help the boy in return for a share of the blood money. While traveling across the Southwest, the greenhorn teaches the aging saddle tramp how to read and write; under Jim's expert tutelage, Nate also becomes a crack shot. Along the way, the two save J.C. Hennison, a surgeon turned snake-oil salesman, from a lynch mob. With Doc in tow, they hop a train to San Francisco (where Earp has been living). On the trip, Nate and Jim rescue a wealthy Chinaman and his delectable concubine from an assault by ruffian passengers; the elderly Asian succumbs to his injuries, but not before willing Wei- Li to Nate. Now a foursome, the group reaches the Bay Area too late to catch Earp, who's off to Alaska with a hoard of fellow gold rushers. The quartet go in pursuit. Many murderous brawls and a couple of hard prospecting seasons later, Wei-Li dies in childbirth, leaving Nate a son; and shortly thereafter the 50ish Earp and the distraught young man he never knew had been born come face-to-face. Following a shootout with some archvillains, the ex- marshal and his spitting image part as friends. Divertingly tall tales told in appropriately mock-heroic fashion. Most readers will look forward to Nate's return.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-86017-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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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