In this engrossing family tale, an aging man finds new chapters to explore in the book of his life.
In this debut novel, an alienated widower escapes from a retirement village to reclaim his independence in a Chesapeake Bay cabin only to find that human connection is not so easy to shake off.
Champs Noland was never enthusiastic about making a new home in the retirement community of Egret’s Pond, but when his beloved wife, Pat, dies shortly after their move, he becomes furious and disoriented. Refusing to accept lifelong incarceration in what he calls the “expirement home” at “Regret’s Pond” and rejecting his children’s well-meaning attempts to reconcile him to a life of sterile safety, he runs away to the family’s old fishing cabin on the tidewaters of the Sassafras River. But even there he finds disturbing signs of change and loss. His daughter has spruced up the place in hopes of renting it to summer tourists; his boat has been sent to the junkyard; and the rustic, mismatched sanctuary of his youth is unrecognizable. He sets up housekeeping in a tent on the lawn, resisting all attempts by his daughter and two sons to dislodge him. Slowly and unwillingly, Champs begins to accumulate links. Josanne and Larry, his longtime neighbors, poke into his life with annoying concern; his ne’er-do-well son, Jeffrey, comes to live in the cabin along with a scruffy spaniel named Millie; and Champs’ other kids and grandchildren intrude, bringing a chaotic mix of problems and love. In this soup of solitude and family, Champs begins to review his regrets and gradually comes to see that curmudgeonly isolation may not be his only choice. In a narrative as tender and mordant as Champs himself, Heald has created both an exploration of aging and a tribute to a lost way of life, as gentrification threatens the working-class roots of the Chesapeake Bay tidewaters. Though the numerous loose ends may seem too neatly tied up at the end, Champs makes a believable and satisfying transition from an unlikable and obstinately self-centered old man to a thoughtful figure examining his family relationships. The bay itself comes alive through the eyes of an old fisherman.
In this engrossing family tale, an aging man finds new chapters to explore in the book of his life.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73322-680-6
Page Count: 322
Publisher: Glasswing Media
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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