An enthralling, cozy tale set in an era when folklore reigned over science.
A historical novel spins a yarn of a skeptical doctor and a trio of folk healers who team up to try to save a Georgia town from a deadly disease.
North Georgia, 1822. Savannah doctor Aubrey Waycross has been invited to the remote town of Lawrenceville to provide the locals with proper medical care—and, in his mind, to dispel some of their backward superstitions, such as a ghost panther stalking the hills. But the citizens of Lawrenceville already know where to get their healing. A few miles outside of town in Hope Hollow, three sisters—Rebecca, Sarah, and Effie Winter—are renowned for their cures for everything from sneezes to rheumatism. Some regard the sisters as witches—Pastor Boatwright insists the panther is their familiar—but Waycross assumes they are merely frauds. Charlatans, of course, can still be dangerous. “What if this supposed panther…put its teeth into human flesh?” worries Waycross. “What if, in their benightedness, the afflicted went to the Winter sisters for treatment? These so-called witches might spread the contagion with some superstition about pouring out blood at a crossroads.” Yet Waycross must admit that the Winters have a knack for unexplained healings, and there does seem to be some sort of big cat in the woods. The physician can’t help but become increasingly fascinated by the sisters, whose ways are as old as the mountains. As Waycross contends with his own ether addiction, Lawrenceville is in danger of a rabies outbreak, and the doctor alone may not be enough to save it. As the pastor preaches his own brand of unscientific cures, Waycross will have to rely on these mysterious “colleagues” if he wants to save the people of Lawrenceville from a terrible fate. Westover’s (The Old Weird South, 2012, etc.) prose is wonderfully detailed, capturing the lushness and grit of his superstition-ruled setting: “The odor was not pleasant. It smelled of too many herbs all at once, basil and rosemary mixed with an overpowering lavender, as well as the spiciness of rhododendron, the sharp tang of pine, and the musk of something decocted from a toadstool.” Readers will be intrigued right from the book’s atmospheric opening, when Waycross’ reluctant carriage driver warns him of all the dangers that haunt Lawrenceville. The story is ultimately less of a gothic fantasy than a slow-moving, slightly magical realist novel that takes as its subject the denizens of a colorful little town. The time and place—antebellum rural Georgia, equally distant from the Revolutionary and Civil wars—feel refreshingly unexplored. There are moments when the story dawdles, but the author has created such an attractive world to inhabit that its conservative pace is not much cause for concern. Westover manages to stick the landing, bringing his doctor’s unlikely investigation into miracles to a wise and affecting conclusion. Solid writing and strong characters buoy this examination of a captivating moment in American history when old beliefs encountered the new.
An enthralling, cozy tale set in an era when folklore reigned over science.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9849748-9-4
Page Count: 322
Publisher: QW Publishers
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 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
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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