François’ apologia is less a sour-grapes critique of his brother’s theories than a cynical deconstruction of the...
Audeguy’s inventive novel profiles the older, smarter brother of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Witnessing the 1794 relocation of his younger brother’s remains to the Panthéon, the aging François Rousseau resolves to write his own memoir as a counterweight to Jean-Jacques’ Confessions. This episodic novel, Audeguy’s second (The Theory of Clouds, 2007), chronicles François’ 90-year lifespan, beginning with his rejection by the father who coddled his younger brother, his mentorship in literature and licentiousness by the Comte de Saint-Fonds, his apprenticeship to a watchmaker, his further training in debauchery (his chosen métier) and his arrival in Paris to become the factotum of a genteel bordello. His watchmaking skills land him a lucrative job manufacturing erotic accessories, including a sex machine dubbed Hercules. François does time in the Bastille—contrary to Revolutionary propaganda, he insists, it was the cushiest prison in Paris. There, he meets the Marquis de Sade and helps Sade hide the manuscript of the Marquis’ notorious The 120 days of Sodom. Released during the storming of the Bastille, the now aged François has outlived his retirement funds. As the Terror approaches, he’s employed by embattled feminist Sophie to manage a Paris public bath. The fact that François and Jean-Jacques never met as adults is historically correct (Audeguy’s title is taken from Rousseau’s assertion in Confessions that after his older brother disappeared, he became the fils unique: only son.) But dramatic tension might have been better served had the liberties allowed by historical fiction been exploited to stage a confrontation between these two unequally treated siblings. However, Audeguy’s primary objective is a prolonged meditation, through the eyes of a perversely virtuous protagonist, on the limitless permutations of human depravity and hypocrisy. The French critics have praised the novel’s 18th-century-esque diction. Cullen’s English translation expertly delivers the equivalent.
François’ apologia is less a sour-grapes critique of his brother’s theories than a cynical deconstruction of the revolutionary ideals they presaged.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-101329-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
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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