Combining history, fairy tale, and period literary fashions, Sherman (the paperback Through a Brazen Mirror) offers a sprawling 18th-century epic that could be improved with some 20th-century editing. The narrator is the loyal no-nonsense Berthe Duvet, personal maid to the woman who becomes the Duchess of Malvoeux on her marriage to the duke of a beautiful duchy in the Jura mountains of France. Like Camelot, the chateau of the duchy exists out of time: 200 years have passed since the French Revolution, a perilous time for the ducal family when the chateau was sacked and the lands destroyed, but a magic spell has since turned it into a ``fairy kingdom'' where every need is served by ``creatures of magic,'' the weather never varies, and the Baroque palace is filled to the ``rafters with a most sumptuous profusion of treasures.'' A certain Colette, whose short life played a decisive role in the fate of the Malvoeux family, suggests that Berthe write the history of the chateau. And this Berthe proceeds to do, beginning with her childhood in Paris, her service with the young duchess, and their move to this chateau filled with objects collected by a family driven by a passion to possess—a passion that has not escaped the current duke, who collects exotic birds. Meanwhile, French history is also moving at a fast clip, and Berthe adds at length her impressions of those stirring times. She soon learns that there's something dark in the family past. A beggar appears to remind the family of his curse—a curse to be removed only when a white porcelain bird is found. The search is joined, past crimes are finally revealed, the curse is lifted—only to be replaced with a more benign but no less confining enchantment. A dazzling display of period detail, and a slew of authentic- seeming characters—but all disappointingly held in thrall to a narrative that lumbers on to a by-now-longed-for end.
Pub Date: May 6, 1993
ISBN: 0-525-93608-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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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The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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