A tale of kindhearted, hesitant heroism, with a little vigilante justice.
Ellen and her blind best friend, Temerity, again take on the wrongs of this world, letting neither emotional scarring nor physical disability stand in their way.
Ellen Homes is beginning to recover from the traumas of her upbringing within the dark underbelly of the foster-care system. Shattuck (Invisible Ellen, 2014) picks up the threads of Ellen’s tale with her second novel, exploring how Ellen’s friends and the universe conspire to pull her out of the shadows and into the light of social relationships. A horrific bus crash sets in motion a constellation of new crises for Ellen to reluctantly resolve. The crash forces Ellen into contact with not only a young girl (who will avoid struggles with the foster-care system, thanks to Ellen), but also a Detective Barclay, who could prove helpful, if only Ellen would bring herself to speak openly with him. Further, one of Ellen’s co-workers is likely selling drugs, another has discovered neither she nor her girlfriend can conceive a child, and a runaway with a bone-shaking cough has taken shelter in the basement of Temerity and Justice’s apartment building. Perhaps most frightening of all, Temerity’s friend Rupert seems to have asked Ellen out on a date. The prose is still heavy, like the weight of Ellen’s past burdens; we are reminded repeatedly that Ellen tries hard to stay invisible, that Ellen knows how kids get ensnared within the system, that Ellen uses food to comfort her roiling emotions, that Ellen finds social interactions exhausting. Yet the more Ellen is drawn out of her own head, the more the twists and turns of her life drive energy into the tale. Ellen turns her skill at seeming invisible to good use, bringing to light what others want hidden.
A tale of kindhearted, hesitant heroism, with a little vigilante justice.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-16762-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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
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
© 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.
