Olmstead's first novel is a drawn out melodrama of love and underworld murder in rural New England. By the author of the story collection River Dogs (1987). Asel and Averell are the orphaned brothers of backwoods (Maine) parents who fished and trapped for a livelihood. After their accidental death, young Asel is raised by a brutal German farmer named Borst; later (still unable to read or write), he works for older brother Averell deep in the Maine woods, as a scout and guide for big-city "sports" who come, in their decadent manner, to drink and shoot. All goes well until Averell mysteriously disappears, and Asel lives on in their hunting cabin for three years, trapping furs for a decent-minded middleman and wrestling with a Great and Tormenting Secret. The secret—not revealed until the close—is that Asel has murdered two especially depraved "sports" who seemed, on top of it, to have some kind of strangle-hold on Averell. What the reader does learn early on, however, is that three years alone in the wilderness drive Asel to acknowledge his need for Woman. He sets out for New Hampshire, where the middleman has arranged contacts for him, and he ends up living with an erstwhile VISTA volunteer (and now schoolteacher) named Phoebe King, who has troubles of her own (a husband-in-name-only who died in Vietnam; a tyrannical father; an absent mother) that give her, frequently, a tendency to cry. An atmosphere of angst and shapeless foreboding hovers over the lives of Asel and Phoebe ("You know, sometimes I try to figure it all out and I can't"). There will be scenes of farm life; the beery antics of local rustics; a woman who hangs herself in the forest ("We all kill ourselves in the end," philosophizes Asel. "Some of us need help. Some of us don't"); and a scene (impeccably rendered) of Asel butchering an ox as the novel waits sluggishly for its ending to come about: return to the north woods; sudden appearance of central-casting gangsters; shootings and a house on fire; one last murder; and returning Asel's closing embrace with the waiting-at-home Phoebe. Half and half: crisply observed set-pieces robustly written, the whole placed into an ambience of made-for-TV soap.
Pub Date: March 12, 1988
ISBN: 0394757521
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Vintage/Random House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1988
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
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
