Another sensitive examination of universal emotions in the hearts of affluent WASPs from Robinson, in a novel that depicts a second marriage imperiled by offspring from the first. When Emma Goodwin and Peter Chatfield fall in love in 1984, both are recently divorced and feeling guilty because they initiated the break-ups. Emma’s ex-husband, Warren (the book’s only crudely drawn portrait), is a manipulative brute who uses their three-year-old daughter, Tess, as a weapon; social-climbing Caroline Chatfield, devastated by Peter’s departure, feels a vindictiveness toward him that only exacerbates seven-year-old Amanda’s sullenness and rage. When Peter and Emma marry, it’s clear that the stage is set for disaster, though the grim denouement takes eight years to arrive. As in her short fiction (Asking for Love, 1996, etc.), Robinson expertly delineates complex interactions among people, charting the ebb and flow of passions, the revision of opinions as her characters learn and mature. There are no villains (not even Warren), just fallible human beings whose mistakes sometimes have permanent consequences. Amanda’s behavior worsens as she enters her teens, and Peter’s misguided attempts to force her to be part of his new family only deepen her alienation; and well-intentioned Emma, rejected over and over again, finds her marriage battered by her inability to love her stepdaughter. This unhappy impasse is shattered by an automobile accident that shocks all the protagonists out of their frozen attitudes. Robinson’s carefully honed techniques aren’t quite as effective here as in her stories; instead of a few key epiphanies that illuminate a short text, she loads her full-length narrative with so many instances of the characters musing on their relationships and their feelings that the insights occasionally seem obvious and excessive. These flaws, though, are transcended in the moving final chapters, which show people we care about groping toward reconciliation and renewal. A thoughtful, tender tale by one of our finest exponents of traditional realistic fiction.
Pub Date: July 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-43901-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
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
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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