A funny and charming first novel from the author of a highly acclaimed collection of linked short stories, Bad Haircut (1994). Like its predecessor, Perrotta's agreeably manic chronicle of prolonged adolescence is set in suburban New Jersey. It covers a chaotic six months (MaySeptember 1994) in the life of Dave Raymond, who's 31 and still lives with his parents, works as a freelance driver for a courier service, plays guitar for a local band (the title group), and enjoys a more-or-less committed relationship with Julie Muller, the girl he's been ``with'' since their high school days. When Dave impulsively proposes marriage and Julie eagerly accepts, the looming specters of stability and fidelity severely test Dave's fatigued mettle—as he and his fellow Wishbones endure a series of bittersweet misadventures recounted with irresistible tongue-in-cheek deadpan brio. The novel is brimming with sharply observed secondary characters, including bandmates Buzzy (a happily married alcoholic), Stan (ever morosely unlucky in love), and Ian (who's writing a musical about the assassination of JFK); a former doper turned priest; and Gretchen, the girl with whom Dave happily dallies even as his wedding day draws nearer. Perrotta offers such beguiling set pieces as a wedding at which an elderly band singer dies onstage; a hilariously described poetry reading (where Gretchen performs, and which features ``a philosophical dialogue between Jack Kerouac and Charles Manson. . . [that] turned out to be an excuse to talk really fast and say the word `man' a lot''); and the Wishbones's disastrous gig playing for a group of neo-Nazi survivalist skinheads. Nor does the climactic wedding itself disappoint: It's a wonderfully cacophonous celebration of life during which the tamed Dave ``already. . . feels himself being transformed into a historical figure, frozen into anecdote by his unborn children and grandchildren.'' Pure pleasure. And it'll make a terrific movie.
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-399-14267-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997
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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