One of Morrison’s finest, and a heartening return to Nobel–worthy form.
A black patriarch’s obsessive domination of the many women in his life is relentlessly scrutinized in the 1993 Nobel winner’s intricately patterned eighth novel.
An opening monologue spoken by an unidentified elderly woman reminisces about the once-vibrant, now-defunct Florida Hotel and Resort (a “playground” for affluent black people) owned by the late Bill Cosey: a rags-to-riches millionaire revered for his benevolence and his ability to attract and possess beautiful women. We’re soon introduced to Junior Viviane, a runaway and reform-school veteran who answers an ad for a “Companion, Secretary” placed by Cosey’s (much younger) widow Heed (born, wretchedly poor, as Heed the Night Johnson). Then, in a gorgeous deployment of enigmatic flashbacks, Morrison focuses in turn on elderly May Cosey, the widow of Cosey’s son Billy Boy; May’s daughter Christine, the old man’s only surviving blood relative, who had fled the Resort and forfeited her birthright; and the silent, judging presence who has observed them all: Cosey’s legendary chef, known only as L. As Junior expertly seduces Romen, the adolescent grandson of Sandler and Vida Gibbons (both of whom had been employed by Cosey), Christine’s rage, May’s paranoid fear of racial unrest as a threat to her security (“for years, she hoarded and buried, and preserved and stole”), and the frail heed’s stranglehold on the Cosey property and history, all meld, as the novel’s climactic events deepen the enigma of Cosey (who’s present only in retrospect): a fructifying paternal figure, and perhaps also an unconscionable predator (or, as L. wryly concludes, “an ordinary man ripped, like the rest of us, by wrath and love”). Incorporating elements from earlier Morrison novels (notably Jazz, Paradise, and Sula), Love is an elegantly shaped epic of infatuation, enslavement, and liberation: a rich symbolic mystery that grows steadily more eloquent and disturbing as its meanings clarify and grip the reader.
One of Morrison’s finest, and a heartening return to Nobel–worthy form.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-40944-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
A subtle, mature reflection on the loop of life from a unique writer of deserved international stature.
When the four adult Madigan children come home for Christmas to visit their widowed mother for the last time before the family house is sold, a familiar landscape of tensions is renewed and reordered.
Newly chosen as Ireland’s first fiction laureate, Enright (The Forgotten Waltz, 2012, etc.) showcases the unostentatious skill that underpins her success and popularity in this latest story of place and connection, set in an unnamed community in County Clare. Rosaleen Considine married beneath her when she took the hand of Pat Madigan decades ago. Their four children are now middle-aged, and only one of them, Constance, stayed local, marrying into the McGrath family, which has benefited comfortably from the nation’s financial boom. Returning to the fold are Dan, originally destined for the priesthood, now living in Toronto, gay and “a raging blank of a human being”; Emmet, the international charity worker struggling with attachment; and Hanna, the disappointed actress with a drinking problem. This is prime Enright territory, the fertile soil of home and history, cash and clan; or, in the case of the Madigan reunion, “all the things that were unsayable: failure, money, sex and drink.” Long introductions to the principal characters precede the theatrical format of the reunion, allowing Enright plenty of space to convey her brilliant ear for dialogue, her soft wit, and piercing, poetic sense of life’s larger abstractions. Like Enright's Man Booker Prize–winning The Gathering (2007), this novel traces experience across generations although, despite a brief crisis, this is a less dramatic story, while abidingly generous and humane.
A subtle, mature reflection on the loop of life from a unique writer of deserved international stature.Pub Date: May 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-393-24821-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman’s latest will resonate a long time.
In Beartown, where the people are as "tough as the forest, as hard as the ice," the star player on the beloved hockey team is accused of rape, and the town turns upon itself.
Swedish novelist Backman’s (A Man Called Ove, 2014, etc.) story quickly becomes a rich exploration of the culture of hockey, a sport whose acolytes see it as a violent liturgy on ice. Beartown explodes after rape charges are brought against the talented Kevin, son of privilege and influence, who's nearly untouchable because of his transcendent talent. The victim is Maya, the teenage daughter of the hockey club’s much-admired general manager, Peter, another Beartown golden boy, a hockey star who made it to the NHL. Peter was lured home to bring winning hockey back to Beartown. Now, after years of despair, the local club is on the cusp of a championship, but not without Kevin. Backman is a masterful writer, his characters familiar yet distinct, flawed yet heroic. Despite his love for hockey, where fights are part of the game, Peter hates violence. Kira, his wife, is an attorney with an aggressive, take-no-prisoners demeanor. Minor characters include Sune, "the man who has been coach of Beartown's A-team since Peter was a boy," whom the sponsors now want fired. There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor: the club president’s table manners are so crude "you can’t help wondering if he’s actually misunderstood the whole concept of eating." Like Friday Night Lights, this is about more than youth sports; it's part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction.
A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman’s latest will resonate a long time.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6076-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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