A noteworthy baddie and a well-defined power give this otherworldly tale distinction.
Two centuries-old lovers capable of occupying others’ bodies stumble on a few people with the same ability, including one who proves menacing, in this supernatural novel.
Peter Ebersole’s pancreatic cancer means he has mere weeks to live, at least in his current body. He and his lover, Miriam, met nearly 700 years ago and can both inhabit, or ride, other people’s bodies. They carefully select hosts with few familial ties, as they’re essentially stealing the individuals’ lives. Sporting fresh, younger host bodies, Peter and Miriam, now the Hoffmans, start anew in Birmingham, Alabama. Though the couple have secured a substantial nest egg, Miriam gets a job at a PR firm. As riders are rare, she’s surprised when she discovers that two others at the firm have the same talent. But while assisting with a fundraising dinner for the growing American Values Party, Miriam and a rider co-worker spot another of their kind. (Riders can identify their own when their “original faces” are reflected in mirrors.) Unfortunately, this particular rider, Anwar, with a significant link to AVP, sees them as well. Since he considers both a threat, he initiates a plan to eliminate them. Brown (A Stone of Hope, 2015, etc.) raises the stakes by clarifying that Peter and Miriam are vulnerable: If the host body dies before the rider jumps to another one, the consequences are fatal. Anwar is an exceptional villain; the backstory reveals he had ridden the body of an infamous historical figure of the 20th century. In the present day, he’s using his AVP association to stir up trouble in the U.S. The author fortifies the narrative by addressing this special ability’s moral implication: Taking another body effectively ends the host’s life. And a rider may choose death over jumping to a person who has children. Abundant dialogue helps the story pop, especially when it’s satirical: After someone notes Miriam’s age is 700, she specifies that she’s “really only” 680.
A noteworthy baddie and a well-defined power give this otherworldly tale distinction.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73257-760-2
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Ingram Spark
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2018
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
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The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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