A well-done book for a limited audience.
Blending Native American myth, archaeological detail, government conspiracy and a sci-fi flair, Baker covers a lot of ground, but does so with dexterity and grace.
Perhaps the only significant problem with the first in this planned series is its way of engaging on so many specific subject areas. The author populates this unique story with alien civilizations, 17th-century Ojibwe shamans, shady government agents and professional archaeologists. In doing so, Baker tries to tap numerous niche audiences. But his wide-ranging project seems to beg the following questions: Is a science-fiction fan going to want to read so much about Ojibwe tribal lore? Are readers interested in Native American culture going to want their indigenous histories served with a side of extraterrestrial life? Will archaeology buffs care about government cover-ups? Because Baker is a talented writer and an adept syncretist, the answer to these questions may well be yes; on the other hand, this could be a tough sell. Akiiwan begins in the 1600s, during which time a talented Native American shaman–Voice-in-the-Sky–is contacted by members of an alien race who are interested in living with the Ojibwe people and sharing with them their secrets and talents. Fast-forward to the modern day, when government agents hire skilled archaeologist Samantha Horner to learn more about Voice-in-the-Sky and the mysterious powers he may have possessed. But from the moment her excavation begins, strange occurrences–violent storms, unexpected attacks on crew members and baffling disappearances–suggest to Horner that something strange is afoot. Baker tells Horner’s tale with a skillful ease. His prose is elegant and precise and his descriptions–both of his characters and of the natural world–are beautiful and evocative. Though Baker sets for himself a difficult task in taking on so many odd storylines, he manages to establish among them a workable, if tenuous, balance.
A well-done book for a limited audience.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4303-1253-6
Page Count: 527
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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