This first novel by ex-Congressman Mrazek is a deft and fast-paced historical adventure, involving a ragtag group of villains, double agents, and a tough-minded young hero and heroine contending for a cache of gold. Set in the waning months of the Civil War, in the devastated Shenandoah Valley, the story traces the growing involvement of 15-year-old Jamie Lockhart in the search for several crates of Confederate gold, seized by the Union in 1861, and then quickly stolen by a group of Confederate officers, who hide in the expectation that the war will soon be over and the Confederacy none the worse for its disappearance. The last survivor of that group leads a band of cutthroats in pursuit of Jamie, who has accidentally discovered the only map to the gold. Another group soon enters the fray, determined to use the gold for the benefit of newly emancipated slaves. Arid Jamie wants to deliver the gold bars personally to Robert E. Lee. Along the way, he joins forces with the bright, independent, and bloody-minded Katherine Dandridge. Just 18 years old, she is determined to track down and kill the Confederate deserters pursuing Jamie after they ruthlessly shoot down her father. Confederate and union raiders, newly escaped slaves, and a seemingly demented actor soon enter the fray, which turns even bloodier. Jamie and Katherine survive, older and wiser for their struggles, and with secrets of their own. A gripping, well-researched, and vivid debut.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-20024-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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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. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Five friends meet on their first day of kindergarten at the exclusive Atwood School and remain lifelong friends through tragedy and triumph.
When Gabby, Billy, Izzie, Andy and Sean meet in the toy kitchen of the kindergarten classroom on their first day of school, no one can know how strong the group’s friendship will remain. Despite their different personalities and interests, the five grow up together and become even closer as they come into their own talents and life paths. But tragedy will strike and strike again. Family troubles, abusive parents, drugs, alcohol, stress, grief and even random bad luck will put pressure on each of them individually and as a group. Known for her emotional romances, Steel makes a bit of a departure with this effort that follows a group of friends through young adulthood. But even as one tragedy after another befalls the friends, the impact of the events is blunted by a distant narrative style that lacks emotional intensity.
More about grief and tragedy than romance.Pub Date: July 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-34321-3
Page Count: 322
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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