Another verbose quasi-period concoction from the alarmingly prolific Oates—with little of the wit and thematic edge that made A Bloodsmoor Romance a pointed (if labored) diversion. This time, supposedly, the detective-mystery form is being tackled, parodied, and Oates-ified; in fact, however, the three long episodes here are gothics, not mysteries, with little suspense and less detection; and, while the exaggerated, ornate narration in Bloodsmoor Romance suited the genre at hand, a similar style in these "Mysteries"—circa 1890-1910—seems arbitrary and anachronistic. In "The Virgin in the Rose-Bower," Abigail Whimbrel goes mad while visiting her cousin Georgina Kilgarvan, spinster-mistress of Glen Mawr manor: Abigail's baby is found dead, much of the corpse "eaten away." Other brutal deaths occur in the neighborhood. And while the local authorities blame this mayhem on rats or vagrants, Georgina's 16-year-old cousin Xavier Kilgarvan pokes around (think Hardy Boys, not Hercule Poirot)—helping to uncover a slew of standard family/sexual secrets while falling in breathy love with Georgina's young half-sister Perdita. In the second novella, "Devil's Half-Acre," super-handsome Xavier is now 28, a famous detective who returns to Winterthurn to investigate a series of molestation-murders—which have been blamed on a Jewish factory-manager (who is eventually lynched, thanks in part to a local Klan). So Xavier, drearily noble and faceless throughout, labors to pin the crime on the real aristocrat/culprit (obvious from the start)—but only succeeds in incriminating his own, disturbed brother. (His remorse ruins his renewed romance with Perdita.) And the third episode, "The Blood-stained Bridal Gown," takes place on the eve of WW I—with Perdita's husband the central victim in an adultery-murder: Xavier broods about collective guilt and such; he's depressed by his duels with an again-obvious villain; and there's a limply contrived happy ending—though Xavier gives up detection, which he finds too spiritually burdensome. Despite several pretentious authorial musings on "Mystery," however, there's no real illumination here of the primal forces at work in the detective genre. Instead, there's a replay of familiar Oates preoccupations—erotic repression, kinky fantasies, social hypocrisy—and familiar Oates mannerisms: italics, exclamation points, compulsive parentheses, rhetorical questions. And, though Oates devotees will find her arch, rococo style on lavish display, along with some inventive local details, anyone looking for period mystery—complete with socio-cultural resonances—will do far, far better with such genuine items as Juhan Symons' The Black-heath Poisonings (1979).
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 1983
ISBN: 0865381208
Page Count: 487
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1983
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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