A light, vibrant, feel-good tale that should interest anyone with a sense of adventure and curiosity about the wider world.
This sequel continues the story of a guitarist walking the pilgrim path across Spain.
Diego’s wandering spirit had been awakened in Marriott’s (Candyfloss Guitar, 2015) debut novel, in which the protagonist left his village and began to follow his dream of becoming a flamenco guitarist. Having completed his trek to Santiago, Diego decides to travel to Madrid, where he might make a living as a musician. Along the way, he meets characters from different backgrounds with their own dreams. There’s Mamadou, who left Senegal to start a drumming school; Mari, a flamenco dancer trying to move on from a terrible past relationship; and Daniel, a former aspiring guitarist who learned that he was better suited to the life of a carpenter. When Diego fails an audition for a local production in Madrid, he leaves the city and finds himself still on his pilgrimage, this time seeking the home of legendary flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía. Diego always feels himself drifting away from the course he has set for himself, but closer to the spiritual path he is seeking, which is defined early in the book as “inori,” a faith in oneself. Each person he meets either helps keep him on this road or Diego assists that individual to get unstuck and start a pilgrimage. There aren’t a lot of definite conclusions in the tale, and Diego’s epiphanies often seem random. At one point, Diego is surprised to see a photograph of his father in a local tavern, and muses, “I should have known, Papá had always loved children,” a thought that doesn’t have much to do with the larger narrative. At times, the dialogue feels forced, as when Mamadou tells Diego a large chunk of his life story moments after they meet. But Marriott’s strengths make this an enjoyable journey. The places Diego visits are rendered vividly in the author’s prose, and the moving scenery and revolving cast of supporting characters keep the novel from getting stale.
A light, vibrant, feel-good tale that should interest anyone with a sense of adventure and curiosity about the wider world.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-912615-92-6
Page Count: 260
Publisher: The Marsh Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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