Edited by London literary agent Peake, a mostly British collection of stories exploring the rough-and-tumble terrain of seduction, marred by pretentious prose and an overly studied approach. Each of the 12 tales delves into the passions, patterns, compulsions, illusions, displays, and emotions that lead to sex, love, and, more often than not, betrayal. Many of these protagonists are hyperintellectuals who see sex as an animal need rather than a means of connecting. In ``Soft Sell—a Fantasy'' by A.L. Barker, a scholar who published a definitive history of seduction (from Cro-Magnon to Common Market man) becomes tediously self-important as she exploits her position as a Privileged Customer for a Catalogue that states ``we will make possible for you anything which is possible at all'' to engage the attentions of a thoroughly uninterested salesman. Will Self's ``Incubus: or The Impossibility of Self-Determination as to Desire'' is more compelling: A philosopher studying the impossibility of free will manages to break free of his marriage and sleep with his doting research assistant—but only in a drunken haze that prevents him from recalling any of it. Other protagonists are less interested in the act of sex itself than in their capacity to be seduced. In ``Strategy and Siege,'' by Damon Galgut, a 53-year-old historian whose wife has just left him takes an uncharacteristic trip to the nation of Lesotho in southern Africa and finds himself running after an overweight farm girl he had previously rejected. Francis King's ``Sukie'' shows aging Dr. Middleton being taken in by a less-than-attractive con artist, despite the fact that he considers his years of adventure behind him. While these are potentially tender topics, neither author delves deeply enough into the protagonists' psyche to make their actions meaningful. Indeed, most stories here fail to go beyond the titillating surface of seduction to explore the potentially powerful underpinnings of basic emotions. As meaningful as a one-night stand.
Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1995
ISBN: 1-85242-314-5
Page Count: 221
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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
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
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