A well-crafted parable about the vulnerability of democracy to demagoguery.
In Ainsworth’s debut novel, a wildly popular president quickly consolidates extraordinary power and threatens the fabric of democracy.
When this tale of political intrigue begins, President Hortense Hamilton Preston is a weakened leader with rapidly diminishing approval ratings. She responds tepidly to a terrorist attack on American soil and then gets embroiled in a scandal that implicates her health care panel in comically inappropriate misuse of funds. When four Syrian fighter jets attempt to force down an American plane, she again responds with a measured caution that’s generally perceived as pusillanimous hesitation. Finally, the Mexican Army invades Texas, intent on reclaiming territory that it claims the United States stole. M. Spencer Howell, the well-regarded, charismatic governor of Florida, soon rides this wave of civic disillusionment into the White House and immediately implements a ferociously aggressive, divisive agenda. He promises mercilessly strict immigration reform, involving the deportation of undocumented Mexicans en masse. He intends to drastically cut government spending by excising a host of social welfare programs, and he pledges to rehabilitate what he sees as a decayed military and enact protectionist trade measures that would drastically redraw the nation’s economic alliances. All the while, he resorts to incendiary rhetoric that fans the flames of racial and ethnic discord. Furtively, he also oversees a secret military program called “Ezekiel’s Wheel,” which is developing a chillingly powerful weapon, and quietly constructs his own private militia for domestic use, seemingly without congressional oversight. Ainsworth deftly tracks the arc of Howell’s power as it grows more tyrannical. Even more impressive is the author’s depiction of the profound consequences of widespread disenfranchisement and the blindness of the public when it’s deeply disappointed by its supposed representatives. Sometimes it seems as if the novel is about the corruption of a politician by absolute power, but Howell shows clear signs of being an autocrat long before he becomes president. Also, the strategic scheming of Mexico and Russia is confusing, as it’s hard to imagine why it would serve their individual interests. Overall, though, this is a very timely book, given that we live in an age of national frustration, and it artfully captures the precariousness of even the best democracies.
A well-crafted parable about the vulnerability of democracy to demagoguery.Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9770376-2-9
Page Count: 574
Publisher: VRA Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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
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