A surreal, sometimes-difficult narrative that will reward patient readers.
A university lawyer takes care of a monkey with humanlike tendencies in this debut novel.
Attorney Jim Drewry is in charge of monitoring a university study in which researchers are splicing human DNA with monkeys’ to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease. When a student involved in the study objects to the animals’ treatment, she opts to abandon it, and she leaves one of the genetically altered monkeys, named Eve, in Jim’s care. He’s initially reluctant to keep the animal, but then he begins to recognize what an extraordinary creature Eve is. She cries in a way that seems to convey emotional distress, a uniquely human expression, and her behavior makes Jim believe that she’s on some kind of “spiritual journey.” His son, Buck, and wife, Grace, take to Eve as well, treating her like an odd combination of pet and family member. As Jim interacts with the monkey, he also deals with the recent death of his son Thomas and goes on a troubling emotional quest. He begins to believe in alternate universes and questions whether it’s in humanity’s nature to seek spiritual knowledge. Although his preacher friend, Barry, attempts to help him, he seems overwhelmed by questions. During his moments of déjà vu, he worries that events are actually repeating themselves or that they’re occurring in other universes. (It doesn’t help that Jim is less-than-meticulous about taking his medication for mental problems.) It’s a lot for readers to take in, but Singer is a deft storyteller who engages with thorny religious and scientific questions while also crafting memorable characters. Some of Singer’s gambles don’t pay off completely—such as when he revisits past scenes in order to disorient readers or intersperses quasi-historical retellings of Jesus’ time on Earth—but their bravery is admirable, nonetheless. The disjointed narrative is likely to alienate some readers, especially near the end, when it’s increasingly difficult to know what’s actually happening and what’s a product of Jim’s imagination. Others, however, may enjoy Singer’s bold moves.
A surreal, sometimes-difficult narrative that will reward patient readers.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0692342435
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Cactus Jack Press
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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