A historically and culturally informative tale of the tragic fall of a proud man.
In this prequel to Now Silence (2011), Shepard tells the story of a Mexican-American family that believes that a hidden fortune will enable them to buy back land taken by the U.S. government in 1848.
In 1596, conquistador Juan de Ornate’s expedition began a journey of more than 1,000 miles from the center of Mexico to the outlying, barren reaches of what would become northern New Mexico. Although their search for gold and silver proved fruitless, they founded a small colony in this dangerous outpost; in 1610, the settlement was granted official recognition as La Villa de Santa Fe. Shepard’s historical novel revolves around the descendants of these original settlers: Faustino Garcia, his wife Nicasia, and their families. It’s now the 1930s, and Santa Fe’s impoverished Hispanics feel the encroachment of modern life. While Faustino and his contemporaries still speak the Castilian Spanish of their forbears, his young sons are equally fluent in Spanish and English. (Shepard liberally mixes Spanish phrases in with the English text, bringing readers into the moment of cultural change.) The arrival of two wealthy Easterners, Michael and Robert, who’ve bought and renovated the great hacienda of Nicasia’s late Tia Dona Serafina, signals Santa Fe’s budding transformation to a great artist and tourist mecca. As they cavort with their elite cohorts, the two newcomers show little respect for the Hispanic traditions that have sustained the sleepy community. There’s only one solution, Faustino thinks: he must recover the lost treasure buried somewhere in the adobe walls of Dona Serafina’s house. Faustino’s foibles and frustrations in this quest propel the narrative forward and drive the obsessed, fanatically religious, and occasionally tedious man to the brink of madness. The story is slow-moving, interspersed with chapters devoted to the 400-year history of Santa Fe, and the plot is a bit far-fetched. However, Shepard’s prose smoothly details the dusty, arid landscape, the ever changing skyscape, and the vibrant colors of Mexican clothing as well as the back-breaking, centuries-old work of digging irrigation ditches. Overall, it conveys a realism that will keep many readers engaged.
A historically and culturally informative tale of the tragic fall of a proud man.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-48747-1
Page Count: 284
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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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