Inman (Old Dogs and Children, 1991, etc.) returns with another small-town southern tale, this time focusing on a boy's coming of age during the late '70s. Young Trout Mosely has to move back to Mosely, Georgia, a company town named after his grandfather, when his mother, Irene, suddenly checks into an Atlanta psychiatric facility. Trout's father, Joe Pike, an ex-football player and Methodist preacher, goes off the deep end as well, refurbishing an old Triumph motorcycle and roaring toward Texas, mouthing homely platitudes about the Good Lord's intentions. Joe Pike is forcibly transferred back to the Methodist Church in Mosely, where his sermons astound his sister, matriarch of the dying mill, and amuse an older brother, a whiskey-besotted ex-spy named Phinizy who's come home to die. There's also an embittered, handicapped girl who was run over by a Mosely truck when she was four; she and Trout get jobs at the Dairy Queen, where together they puzzle over the flaws and foibles of their parents and do some growing up. Joe Pike comes in, occasionally, to slurp Blizzards and meditate out loud on the Dairy Queen as the center of the universe. In addition, Inman introduces a canny local sheriff, a gay cousin in Atlanta, and sundry other colorful types, and, sometimes, his blend of humor, sorrow, and down-home charm makes for a touching evocation of growing up. More often, though, Inman seems to have taken on too much and can't satisfactorily work it all out. When Trout heads off on his dad's Triumph to visit his mother, his adventures on the road seem contrived. Worse, his mother, when he finally sees her, has no wisdom to communicate. Worse still, Joe Pike never pulls himself together and, in the end, is just more pathetic than tragic. Inman's likable tone and command of his settings aren't enough to redeem his overloaded story, which winds down into a forced, unsatisfying conclusion.
Pub Date: March 19, 1997
ISBN: 0-316-41873-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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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