A savory tale bursting with detail and imagination that will appeal to both fiction and science-fiction fans.
The sole heir to a staggering family fortune recovers from mental instability in time to embark on a humanitarian mission to Africa with political ramifications.
Cristian Honey Vane, infamous if only for the recognition-value of his notoriously moneyed surname (think “Hilton”), exclusively inherits the mother lode from his father, John Beregard Vane, who finally succumbed to old age at 103. A reclusive bachelor at age 29, Vane’s life strains his psyche after newshounds discover his dalliance with a prostitute named Prissy, followed by a drunken night attempting posthumous amends at his father’s mausoleum. After Vane casually learns about scammers defrauding the American public all in the name of Ethiopian famine victims, he embarks on a journey to Africa with the hopes of using his newfound wealth to put an end to the destitute conditions there. Guided by an elderly, white-robed East African translator named Mudahid, Vane traverses the highlands of Mamuset seeking to set up camp and begin construction on an enormous humanitarian oasis. But his lack of religious affiliation, his steely determination (that borders on brinksmanship) and opposition from several high-ranking militia places his well-conceived plan in jeopardy. It’s a far cry from the 318-acre beachfront family estate he left behind in southern California, but Vane manages to make the best of his new African endeavor by carefully avoiding pitfalls like bloodthirsty pirates, the seduction of a beautiful journalist, an attack by an Eritrean vanguard and a plague of locusts. His plan eventually comes to fruition, though it sets off much political infighting. Vane miraculously escapes with a few scratches and his tale of adventure is curiously left open-ended, perhaps leaving room for a sequel. Though his prose can ramble and become unruly, Sanders (Freak, 2007, etc.), a prolific wordsmith, deftly reins in some cumbersome exposition and keeps his story tight and clean.
A savory tale bursting with detail and imagination that will appeal to both fiction and science-fiction fans.Pub Date: June 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-6151-6359-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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