A vivid portrait of the last days of the corrupt Nationalist regime in China, by a former reporter clearly familiar with the terrain. Topping (Journey Between Two Chinas, 1972) sets his first novel in 1949, in the final months before the collapse of the Nationalist regime under Chang Kai-shek. Protagonist Eric Jensen, a young American in love with all things Chinese, is teaching in Peking while writing a book on the ancient philosophy of Taoism. Contemptuous of the violent Nationalists, who are increasingly isolated from the Chinese people, he holds out hope that the Communists will bring stability and freedom to the harassed and ill-fed Chinese. His admiration for China attracts the attention of the fledgling CIA, who pressure him into serving as a go-between who can carry American diplomatic initiatives to the Communists. His life is further complicated when he’s recruited by the Communists in the extremely dangerous negotiations going on to insure that the Nationalist general in charge of Peking will surrender the city without a bloody door-to-door battle. Part of the reason Eric agrees to cooperate is his growing love for Li-nan, a student working with the Communists to spare her country from further devastation. Eric’s efforts quickly draw the attention of the lethal Nationalist secret police. And, when matters begin to veer out of control, the CIA seems inclined to silence him as well. Topping, who covered the civil war for the New York Times, gives a convincing portrait of the fall of the Nationalists: his descriptions of battlefields, devastated towns, and the privileged life of foreigners in old China as it gives way to the new have a spare, powerful conviction. His characters can be less convincing; Li-nan is admirable but one-dimensional, and Eric, is an often surprisingly unreflective student of Taoism, more given to action than to analysis. Still, Topping’s obvious fascination with China and his ability to propel a complex plot make for an absorbing, if somber, thriller.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-891620-35-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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