A stirring reminder of the horrors of war and a distinctive take on the timelessness of love.
Two teenage girls from different centuries become strangely connected through personal tragedy and the events of World War I in this debut novel.
Sam Foster is a British teenager with a long-lived set of imaginary friends. At the age of 2, Sam appeared on top of a tall stool, waving at the lightning outside the window. Spooked that these people her child saw might really be the undead, Sam’s mother ordered her husband to move the family to a new house, one in which no one had yet died. At 15, Sam still sees people and visits places that others do not. Her airline pilot father is involved in a devastating car crash, and Sam now sits at his hospital bedside while wrestling with the meaning of the visions she experiences. A second narrative, set during World War I, focuses on Jessica Brown, 15, whose father has been killed in the war. After her younger brother dies of starvation, her penniless mother sends Jessica to work as a maid in London. There, in the opulent home of Maj. Osborne, Jessica works only for room and board, and this unpaid position becomes so demanding, it leaves her hands bleeding. The major’s two oldest sons have died in the war, but the youngest one, Tom, is home on leave. Jessica and Tom are drawn to each other, and it seems as if this unlikely coupling may be a permanent one. Just as Tom prepares to head back to France, facing slim chances of survival, Sam, in the present day, engineers a desperate, supernatural attempt to save her father’s life. Gandar’s work certainly gets off to an intriguing, though slightly confusing, start. Some of Sam’s early visions and travels can be a bit mystifying. Jessica’s wartime story, though, is a convincing, heartbreaking tale that becomes almost compulsively readable after she moves to London. Details about England’s food shortages, the maid’s household responsibilities, and the whims of the wealthy while the poor suffer add potency to an already engrossing account. As Sam’s story collides with the past, the novel slowly becomes whole, leading to an eloquent and moving ending.
A stirring reminder of the horrors of war and a distinctive take on the timelessness of love.Pub Date: March 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-78589-040-6
Page Count: 217
Publisher: Matador
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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