by Zeb Appel ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A well-told account of a striver and dreamer who got some of what she wanted.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
Appel tells the story of the colorful life and death of Mandy Flanagan in this debut literary novel.
Connecticut, 1983. People gather in the town of Wallingford to attend the funeral of Mandy Flanagan, a former theater actress who spent much of her life in New York. Attendees include Mandy’s severe, somewhat jealous sister, Barbie; her newspaper-hoarding younger brother, Ned; her gay niece, Jan, who has returned after eight years away in San Francisco; Jan’s former girlfriend Terri, who is now married to a man and has three children; and a number of older men who hold Mandy in particularly high regard. The tale of Mandy’s life begins to unfold: the child of working-class Irish immigrants in South Boston, Mandy agreed at 17 to marry the scion of a Boston Brahmin family, Henry Russell—even though she had no intention of not becoming a Broadway star or limiting herself to the affections of one man. They elope to New York, and the marriage doesn’t last long; Mandy cycles through lovers—some significant, some not—in order to advance her career. Now, decades later, old lovers and family members gather, some meeting for the first time to reflect on and correct their versions of Mandy—and of themselves. Appel writes in the natural prose of a raconteur, rising occasionally to the level of lyricism when praising her heroine, as here where she is seen through the eyes of Henry during a trip to the beach: “He thought she could be a beacon for sailors, anchored against the wind and the sea, except that he was sure the men would want to come closer to see for themselves the wild green tassels blowing on her dress, enticing them like a siren, power swirling around her.” It’s a wide-ranging tale, full of minor characters and digressions, and the reader isn’t always sure where things are going. Even so, Appel manages to hold her web of malcontents (and the novel) together with her easy narration and her larger-than-life protagonist.
A well-told account of a striver and dreamer who got some of what she wanted.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9977220-8-6
Page Count: 299
Publisher: DartFrog Books
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
32
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2015
Kirkus Prize
winner
National Book Award Finalist
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
Share your opinion of this book
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.