A slow-paced novel with a beautifully portrayed tropical setting.
In Rosa’s (Fractured, 2013, etc.) historical novel, tragedy forces a Puerto Rican teenager to become his family’s sole provider as America’s influence begins to slowly change his native land.
In 1900s Puerto Rico, José Esperanza is an aboriginal Taino. His ancestry dates back to the island’s original native peoples, who were all but destroyed during the Spaniards’ colonization. Now that it’s newly under U.S. rule, Americans are flocking to the island, bringing teachers, missionaries, and profiteers to the rain forest to scrounge out livings. Such scrounging isn’t foreign to José, who spends his days foraging to provide for his family after the death of his father. He finds little aid, as his mother is sick with grief and his eldest brother is a lazy burden. His younger brother and sister are eager to help, but they’re easily distracted by modern commodities and thoughts of life outside Puerto Rico. Along the way, though, José finds new mentors: a zealous American, Montgomery Holland, who, impressed by the boy’s work ethic, employs him on his tobacco farm; Miss Alexandra “Vyris” Paul, a woman feared and respected as a witch, who bears a familial burden much like José’s; an insistent teacher; a stuttering shopkeeper, and others. Rosa paints a vivid picture of turn-of-the-century Puerto Rico, a lively sierra of breathtaking colors and scurrying, slithering, and sometimes-frightening wildlife. José’s drive to help his family as his world changes around him gives the book much of its narrative motion, but its real charm is in its animated portrayal of the island’s jungles and mountains, its turbulent Luquillo River, and its storms’ violence. The novel has a languid storytelling style, and its lengthy conversations and occasional songs give it an anecdotal structure. The only drawback is that its moments of urgency, as when José’s eldest brother is struck with worms, are slowed considerably by expositional digressions. Ultimately, though, the plot is secondary to the rich history and vibrant backdrops.
A slow-paced novel with a beautifully portrayed tropical setting.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1502570932
Page Count: 516
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2015
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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