Pulitizer-winning journalist Dillon's breezy debut novel, first serialized in The San Jose Mercury News, takes its lead from business news about the fallout in the computer software industry- -it's full of nasty details about the day-to-day workings of Silicon Valley and that monster of the north, Microsoft. Once a legend in the Valley, J.P. McCorwin has faded from the scene. A former Jesuit, J.P. (with similarities to Jerry Brown) now has a personal guru, Baba RAM DOS, a French anarchist who serves as J.P.'s constant companion and theorist. Together, they seem to be plotting the takeover of J.P.'s last employer, a Valley giant called Infinity, which found J.P.'s explorations in artificial intelligence a waste of money. As part of this grand scheme, J.P. recruits a motley group of up-and-comers: There's Maria Cisneros, a Stanford MBA Chicana whose father worked as a farmer; also high up in J.P.'s nameless company is Brad Roth, a former Microsoftee in marketing who was fired for voicing criticism of Windows95. The techies on the staff are all industry dropouts, hacker/geniuses with grudges against corporate domination. Dillon clearly knows how those people dress and behave, and he draws each character with satiric glee. J.P.'s quest is further complicated by corporate intrigue. When Infinity comes to J.P. to solve its devastating problems with imploding laptops, is it really a glitch, or is it a clever bit of corporate sabotage to weaken the company on the stock exchange? The only disappointment in this breakneck plot is the nature of J.P.'s grand scheme when it's finally revealed: It's not the ``virtual pyramid'' that all fear, but something truly wacko. In any case, Maria manages to cope and save the day, and with kind words from Bill Gates, no less! First-novelist Dillon re-creates Silicon Valleyspeak with comic aplomb, which more than compensates for his hobbled plot.
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-83614-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
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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