Lewin, noted for his pixilated parade of unlikely detectives (Family Business, 1995, etc.), forgoes mysteries for the picaresque meanderings and musings of Rover, the Independent Dog. In 37 brief confessions, Rover narrates his adventures on behalf of the canine nation against human oppressors. ``We're not insensate beings! What about some rights here!'' This creed issues from the doomed ``Philosopher'' who's incarcerated with Rover in the pound, and who eventually rescues Rover with advice about the value of temporary degradation—tail thumping, whining—as a tool to attract adoption. Rover is soon again on the road in pursuit of truth, justice, and satisfying dog business. Among his many rescues: a nearly drowned pup whom he drills in essentials—``when rain comes down pups go up!'' (to safe ground), and a canine female dying in a car with closed windows. Rover even rescues the traditionally detested cat, and sometimes a human. But revenge on people who kill or maim dogs is sweet—a jaw-clamp on a backside of a dog kicker comes as a glorious moment. Rover, despite his dogged heroism, also witnesses sad and hurtful canine deaths. Bull sessions are mustered among his fellow wayfarers, and some tricky maneuvers occur with packs: ``A pack with a crazy leader is dangerous.'' Met along the path: Lady, the student of human languages who misses some signals in a parking lot; a three-legged hustler; a dog actress; a female who confesses to previous lives; two ear-splitting carolers; and the great seeress to whom Rover goes for dream interpretation (she is, however, weary of ``primal yelps''). And then there's Love. Rover enjoys a powerful impact on eager females. Opines one, ``[You're] large and strong and roughly handsome . . . and [have] a scent with considerable gravitas.'' A must for the dog-mad, but these cute-free tales are witty and wry enough to reach others with cross-species wisdom.
Pub Date: March 17, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-18169-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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
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
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