An initially engaging tale of an attorney behaving badly that ultimately instructs more than it entertains.
In Silverman’s (What Money Can Buy, 2011) novel, a lawyer faces disbarment after a woman files a sexual grievance against him.
Successful New York attorney Peter Morrissey practices divorce law. His clients are always women seeking lucrative settlements from their soon-to-be exes. As a self-confessed “satyr” (“the male counterpart of a nymphomaniac”), Morrissey routinely propositions his clients, even though the New York Bar Association’s professional standards prohibit such sexual relations, except where a relationship existed prior to the client’s retaining the attorney’s services. A woman named Molly Dixon alleges that Morrissey had sexual intercourse with her while she was his client (and that he billed her for the night). Now the lawyer must answer the charge in court and file a list of his female clients from the past five years, so he hires hard-driving criminal defense attorney William Duffy to represent him. But even as Morrissey faces professional censure and the loss of his livelihood, he still wants to bed his clients, as he finds all women attractive. Still, he hopes for leniency for his hypersexual appetites. The novel starts well with an amusing mix of dark comedy and chew-the-scenery dialogue, as when Duffy differentiates between women Morrissey “plowed” and the few he didn’t. Thankfully, Morrissey isn’t portrayed as a one-dimensional sleazebag; he’s likable despite his peccadilloes and admits that womanizing cost him his marriage. He even donates considerable time and money to Safe Horizon, an organization for victims of domestic violence. Every few pages, meanwhile, the hard-drinking Duffy comes up with another zinger; for example, when he snaps a photo of Morrissey on his cell phone, he says that he plans to hang it in the bathroom: “Every time I’m on the crapper, I’ll think of you.” The author shows considerable expertise in legal strategies and remedies; unfortunately, after the first few chapters, the book seems to be less a novel than a lengthy, point-by-point legal analysis. Legal professionals may be intrigued by this detailed accounting, but it may lack emotional resonance for others.
An initially engaging tale of an attorney behaving badly that ultimately instructs more than it entertains.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481248938
Page Count: 246
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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