So absurdly improbable that it can be swallowed whole: a witty spoof, nicely put together and hard to put down.
In a comedy of errors from second-novelist McPhee (The Center of Things, 2001), two sisters set out to dig up a family secret and find that they’ve struck a mother lode of them.
Lillian and Veronica Moore, although both fully grown and quite independent young women, enjoy a strongly familial relationship of the sort that sisters more typically have in their teens than their 30s. A good thing, too, since each is about the only thing the other has by way of family. Their father Charles died in a car accident 25 years ago (Veronica was with him but survived), and their mother Agnes moved to New Zealand more than a dozen years back and isn’t often in touch. Lillian, a neurologist, has given up on marriage and recently duped an unemployed actor into getting her pregnant during a one-night stand. Veronica, who writes for a TV soap opera and knows all about such plot twists, understands her sister’s frustration but still thinks this was kind of low. Together, the two hire a private detective to straighten out the mystery of their late father: where he’s buried (Agnes refused to tell them), where he was going at the time of the accident, and what he did for a living (another secret Mother won’t tell). The detective is frank: He’ll probably never find anything, and if he does it will most likely be something horrible or scandalous. But Lillian and Veronica can deal with scandal. For one thing, the hapless chump who impregnated Lillian (without knowing it) landed a part in Veronica’s show and the two (the chump and Veronica, not the chump and Lillian) have started dating. For another, Veronica and Lillian may not be sisters. And their father may not have been their father. Is this some sort of postmodern whodunit? Not exactly—more like an old-fashioned farce.
So absurdly improbable that it can be swallowed whole: a witty spoof, nicely put together and hard to put down.Pub Date: June 7, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-6072-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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
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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