An ill-advised take on "The Emperor's New Clothes" that's limp when it isn't condescending.
A boorish ignoramus takes command of a noble vessel and heads full speed ahead into chaos. Yes, it’s an allegory.
Eggers has developed an affinity for fablelike tales that sound alarms about global economics (A Hologram for the King, 2012), technology (The Circle, 2013), and authoritarianism (The Parade, 2019). This shallow, needless Trump parable is the worst of them. That’s mainly because the metaphorical veneer is so thin it all but renders the book unnecessary. When the commander of the ship Glory retires, a corrupt (not to mention “large and lumpy”) kitsch merchant nominates himself for the job, enchanting some and horrifying others. (Among his cronies are “a patsy named Michael the Cohen” and a daughter he lusts after.) Once the “known moron” takes over the Glory, he delivers crazed messages to passengers on a whiteboard (“People who ‘run’ engines are your Enemies”), flings the ship’s manual overboard, and then begins to do the same to anybody who crosses him. Immigrants who could assist are denied permission to board; minorities are cast out to cheers of “Drown the Brown.” A Robert Mueller–esque “Sheriff of the Seas” proves an ineffectual counterweight; in time, the shallow, gullible captain falls under the sway of a Putin-ish “Pale One." (The captain “liked particularly the way he murdered his enemies, or ordered the murder of his enemies.”) Soon, the Glory is pillaged for all it’s worth. Anybody who needs the Trump administration explained to them in lightly fictionalized, fifth grade–primer prose is probably beyond Eggers’ help. But there’s little to appeal to anybody else: The deliberately simple, would-be comic style softens the dangers Eggers means to call out, and his concluding messages about how to right the ship are cloying. (“First, dignity.”)
An ill-advised take on "The Emperor's New Clothes" that's limp when it isn't condescending.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-65908-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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