Hoffman conveys the stink of poverty and the shame it can cause, but not much else.
Scenes from a dirt-poor childhood in Depression-era Virginia.
In the bad old days, Wayland Garnett lived with his four siblings in a cabin in the woods, on the estate of the almighty Ballards. Now, 47 years later, the 63-year-old Wayland is a prosperous Florida businessman with a beautiful wife and daughter, all traces of the redneck expunged. On a business trip to Richmond, Wayland revisits the estate for the first time. A chapter about the past is preceded by a page set in the present; each chapter repeats the pattern. It’s an awkward device for this veteran Southern writer (Tidewater Blood, 1998, etc.), and in the end, there’s no payoff. Wayland has lied to wife Amy about his past, claiming to be the son of a tobacco planter, but he decides after his memory lane trip that telling her the truth might destroy their marriage. That truth is harsh: Wayland’s daddy manages by poaching from the Ballards (the family lives off Ballard castoffs), and making corn liquor; his momma goes barefoot; and Wayland clears ditches. Yet they have their white skin to remind them they are a cut above “the darkies,” an assumption bred in the bone. When his daddy loses his arm to a baler, he loses his self-respect and drowns himself. After Wayland finds his mother frozen to death in the outhouse, the family scatters. Wayland falls in love with the Ballard heiress, Diana. They’re both 16. Challenged by her brother Eugene, he decks the rich kid, then gives up (“poor whites don’t contend above their station”). It’s time to leave. The war has begun, and before you know it, Wayland has landed in Normandy. A muddled account of his years as an infantryman seems to have been added as filler. As for that journey home, all Wayland learns is that ancient truth: Death is the great leveler.
Hoffman conveys the stink of poverty and the shame it can cause, but not much else.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-57966-063-0
Page Count: 252
Publisher: River City Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2005
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
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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