Devilishly sharp social commentary.
An eccentric outsider is baffled by contemporary Manhattan in this engrossing second novel by Pelzman (Troika, 2014).
Robert Walser is a struggling writer whose genteel ways suit a bygone age. He lives on the Upper West Side, supported by a dwindling inheritance, clinging to the hope that his work will be published. Besides his agent, Belinda St. Clair, “a sour but persistent old woman,” Walser has only one other important contact—Rose—a woman with whom he has exchanged letters but never met. The novel’s opening finds the protagonist in high spirits, having received two important messages—the first from Belinda informing him that his short story is being considered by a literary journal, the second from Rose, announcing her imminent arrival in New York. The storyline follows Walser on his walk from his 72nd Street apartment to the Port Authority, where Rose will alight a bus from Philadelphia. Sadly, Rose fails to show, and Walser’s heart sinks as he realizes that he must continue to navigate the unforgiving city alone. Meanwhile, he discovers that a sculpture is being erected near his apartment that embodies all he despises about contemporary city life. Pelzman’s second novel brims with intrigue. Does the enigmatic Rose exist? What is the significance of the sculpture titled #dunamisto? Pelzman’s reveal is tantalizing and richly detailed. Many of the scenes that define Walser’s character will live on in the memory. One such is when he rides the subway and confronts a young man for failing to give up his seat to the elderly: “I await a humane response, but instead he shrugs his shoulders, returns the headphones to his ears and taps away at the screen of his phone as if he exists on a planet of one.” Walser’s old-fashioned set of values—which may appear priggish but are founded on human decency—cause him to be looked upon as potentially insane. This is acutely observant, timely writing that confronts the ever heightening sense of disconnection and self-absorption extant in city life. A minor criticism: The narrative could be distilled from novel length into an even more intense short story. Walser’s jury duty, for instance; although amusing, it feels somewhat extraneous. Still, this is another entrancing, deeply memorable offering from Pelzman.
Devilishly sharp social commentary.Pub Date: July 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73325-853-1
Page Count: 201
Publisher: Jackson Heights Press
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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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