Intelligence, wit and an engaging heroine can’t quite disguise the fact that there’s not much actually happening here.
Versatile novelist/essayist/biographer Prose (Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, 2009, etc.) views post-9/11 America through the sardonic eyes of an Albanian immigrant.
An ad on Craigslist led Lula to a cushy live-in job in suburban New Jersey keeping an eye on high-school senior Zeke while his father makes a bundle on Wall Street. And Mister Stanley, as Lula calls him, even got his friend, hotshot immigration lawyer Don Settebello, to arrange a work visa. So it’s a bit awkward in October 2005 when three fellow Albanians show up in a Lexus SUV and ask her to hide a gun for them. Why does Lula do it? Truth is, she’s a bit bored by her “new American life,” as Don keeps calling it. Making sure Zeke eats, sleeps and does his homework doesn’t take much time; conning Mister Stanley and Don with stories about blood feuds and bride-kidnapping in Albania (most of them plagiarized from folklore or based on family incidents from 100 years ago) is almost too easy. Besides, Alvo, chief of the Lexus-driving crew, is awfully cute, and Lula is lonely. She knows so much more than these liberal, well-meaning Americans; when Don agonizes over what he’s seen at Guantánamo and how little he can do for his clients there, she shrugs, “very Balkan…that’s what happens…human nature.” Lula’s observations of the affluent U.S. are funny, but Prose’s targets are rather obvious: Mister Stanley’s estranged wife is a loony New Ager making a tour of Native American spiritual sites; indifferent student Zeke gets into college only because the place that accepts him is desperate for applicants after a shooting incident (“it’s always the science students,” remarks a professor), etc. The story is agreeable without being terribly eventful or making much of an impact, emotional or otherwise.
Intelligence, wit and an engaging heroine can’t quite disguise the fact that there’s not much actually happening here.Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-171376-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
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
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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