As always with Turtledove, there are no clear heroes or villains, just a broad assortment of proud, flawed, skillfully...
Turtledove’s 22nd series novel begins yet another trilogy that continues his exploration of an America in which, among other things, the Confederacy won the Civil War and Custer didn’t die at the Little Bighorn. More than 20 major characters from Turtledove’s previous Great War trilogy (Breakthroughs, 2000, etc.) are finding it difficult to pick up the pieces in 1918 after the end of the Great War, which was fought on American soil. The 35 United States (soon to be 36, with the socialist state of Kentucky joining the union) have conquered both Canada and the Confederate States of America, leaving everyone somewhat dazed and confused, including any reader jumping into the series with this installment. After 80 pages, Turtledove introduces his central theme: the rise of an American-style fascism swirling around disgruntled, charismatic former Confederate artillery sergeant Jake Featherstone. Blaming blacks (who staged a brief but significant socialist rebellion in the previous series) and the Confederate military for selling out his nation, Featherstone’s ironically named Freedom Party gains the support of wily aristocratic planter Anne Colleton through her lover, submarine commander Roger Kimball. Meanwhile, President Theodore Roosevelt sends the irascible 78-year-old General Custer to act as provisional commander of Quebec, where Custer is targeted for assassination by bitter Canadian bomber Arthur MacGregor.
As always with Turtledove, there are no clear heroes or villains, just a broad assortment of proud, flawed, skillfully detailed personalities who, when they aren’t talking about politics, make Turtledove’s tediously bewildering alternate America come alive.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-345-40565-X
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
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
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
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