While its ending is foreordained (and a bit pat), the story succeeds marvelously in its seasoned appreciation of the many...
Wry account of a sexual harassment lawsuit that’s really a captivating, suspenseful love letter to American middle management, from Fortune columnist Bing, who (as CBS executive Gil Schwartz) has lived it.
Beautiful, pleasant, a bit sexy, and amazingly competent CaroleAnne Winter isn’t all she seems. An office temp hired at Global Fiduciary Trust, an international investment firm based in Chicago, CaroleAnne performs so well that she’s immediately hired as personal assistant to Robert Harbert, the blandly inspiring, comfortably married Executive Vice President in charge of Total Quality. As Human Resources Vice President Fred Tell looks on, Harb comes to adore his new secretary. He pulls every string he can to give her raises, help her escape her abusive marriage, find a better apartment. He even gives her his old sedan so he can buy himself a new BMW. In return, CaroleAnne becomes his trusted lieutenant, setting up meetings, taking notes, even walking barefoot on his spine when his back goes out—though the relationship is perfectly chaste. Still, there’s something odd about CaroleAnne: she has “prayer sessions” with another employee, and she keeps a secret notebook. Then, when a change in the economic climate causes cutbacks in Harb’s department, leaving her (and her boss) with little to do, CaroleAnne suddenly hands in her resignation. Unfortunately, she’s been such a good employee, no one wants to fire her. After refusing reassignment, she complains that she’s been subject to relentless sexual harassment and sues Global for $150 million. Second-novelist Bing (Lloyd: What Happened, 1998) never lets us doubt that CaroleAnne is a nut case, and, as the trial proceeds, the real focus shifts to Harb, whose life is at first destroyed and then, miraculously, reborn. CaroleAnne becomes a pathetic stand-in for all who hate big business, while Harb’s astonishing transformation shows that there’s more to life than unlimited expense accounts, stock options, and the cozy certainties of corporate culture.
While its ending is foreordained (and a bit pat), the story succeeds marvelously in its seasoned appreciation of the many pleasures—and perils—of executive life. (See the July 15 issue of Kirkus for The Big Bing.)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-58234-280-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
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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