A beautifully composed, tragic narrative with relevance to today’s morass of chaos and bigotry.
Tickel’s haunting novel, the third installment of his Hymns of Kingdom series, is set in 1915 southern Texas during the time of the Mexican Revolution.
Thomas Asher is a complex man. He is a Texas Ranger past his prime. An injury has left him in constant pain and addicted to laudanum, the narcotic of the day. It relieves his discomfort and eases a mind still struggling with past hurt and grievances. His new assignment, requiring several days on horseback, will challenge him physically and emotionally. The Mexican Revolution has made the Rangers edgy, worried that the fighting will cross the Rio Grande into a state where the white population is a distinct minority. When a petroleum geologist spots Emilio Sanchez, a Mexican, in the desert with a horse and pack mule and casually mentions it to a deputy sheriff at his boardinghouse, he catches the lawman’s interest. That interest leads him to embellish the tale a bit, “unaware, for now, that his desire to impress a man he does not like will result in the death of a man he does not know.” The story makes its way up the chain to Capt. Render Moates of Ranger Company D in Laredo. Moates’ fateful decision to send his Rangers to track down a “contingent of Mexicans” will result in the reckless accidental shooting of Sanchez. Asher makes a life-changing decision and volunteers to stay behind to watch over the slowly dying man. Tickel has added a cosmic overlay to a basic morality play, but his linguistic skills and ability to tell a solid earthbound story should engage even the least spiritually oriented readers. When Asher begins to share his desperately needed laudanum with Sanchez, he transitions from has-been to prime mover in the battle to get justice for Sanchez. Among the cast of secondary characters, several of whom will have to face their own crises of conscience over the debacle, the most important is Beulah, Asher’s wife. Tickel unwinds the backstory of her days as a prostitute with tenderness and a not-so-gentle swipe at society’s hypocrisy.
A beautifully composed, tragic narrative with relevance to today’s morass of chaos and bigotry.Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9888900-3-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Ventris & Bywater LLC
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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
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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