by William Rhode ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2003
A bit arch, but a good start all the same: British author Rhode, now New York–based, has a sharp eye, a sharper tongue, and...
British slacker in India has to become a successful author within five years if he’s to inherit a fortune.
Joshua King is a spoiled loser. Born in London, he had a privileged upbringing and expensive education, but he never made it through university. He’s spent the last few years living in India, where he has contributed a few articles to a local newspaper (Hindu Week) but has spent most of his time doing drugs and going to rave parties. He was, in fact, such a disappointment to his father (a very successful real estate developer who amassed a large fortune before dying of a Viagra overdose) that he was disinherited—almost. His father’s will stated that Joshua could receive £5 million if he was able to publish a bestselling novel (his father as one of the characters) within five years. Joshua is doubtful he can pull it off, frankly, but he has no other prospects, so decides to give it a go. Thinking that a crime thriller would have the best chance of selling big, he goes back to his editor at Hindu Week and pitches him a story about a local drug- and diamond-dealer named Baba. Assigned to investigate Baba’s activities, Joshua teams up with Yasmin Hoogland, a Dutch tourist whose English boyfriend, James Braxton, has been arrested for drug possession. Yasmin convinces Joshua that they can pull off a heist, robbing Baba of enough heroin and diamonds to buy James out of prison and leave a couple million apiece for themselves. Most normal people would hear bells going off at this point, but Joshua has as little experience of the world of crime as he does of the world of work. The scheme, if nothing else, will give him something to write about.
A bit arch, but a good start all the same: British author Rhode, now New York–based, has a sharp eye, a sharper tongue, and he knows how not to waste words.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-57322-980-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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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
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
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
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