As usual from Berger (Isabelle, 1998, etc.), a deceptively simple tale—here, about a day in the life of a homeless couple and their German Shepard, on whom they rely—turns into a thing of eloquence and beauty, with tragedy and humanity evident in equal measure. King is the dog; he tells the story of his people, Vica and Vico, and the semblance of normality the three of them have brought to a homeless existence. Having joined a community of homeless in a trash-strewn wasteland, which they call Saint ValÇry, at the edge of a city and on the verge of a bustling motorway, like the others Vica and Vico constructed with painstaking care a home out of the refuse, a home that like the others reflects something essential of their personalities. From there they make their daily foray into town, to sit on the sidewalk and hawk the radishes they have grown to sell. Vica also makes a foray for water, taking it from a gas-station bathroom and trying to outwit the owner who would deny it to her. And in quiet moments they all dream, of who they were and who they might become again. King is a full partner in the adventures as well as in the dreams: he understands their thoughts, and they understand his. He is also the companion and watchdog of the community, from Jack the Baron, its leader and guardian, to Danny the jokester and the elderly Corinna. When darkness falls on this day, however, Saint ValÇry is facing obliteration, as soldiers and equipment move in to reclaim the site for development. King does what he can to aid those who resist, including Vico, who takes a knife to the officer in charge, but in the end resistance is futile and they are all truly homeless once more. Spare and dreamlike, yet for all its delicacy harshly real: a story that opens a window on a world easily ignored, and makes its case long after the last page is turned.
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-375-40556-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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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