A gorgeous, human commentary on the paradox of modern life and modern art.
Structured as an interview with a fictional visual artist, Kiefer’s (The Animals, 2015, etc.) novella explores the ambitions and limits of art.
In the middle of an illustrious career, installation artist Frank Poole conceives of his most ambitious project yet: an entire town built from the ground up in the remote desert and then sealed for eternity. Driven by a troubled childhood and an obsession with getting as close as humanly possible to stopping time, Frank agrees to let a single interviewer shadow him during the weeks of creation. A parallel tale quickly develops in the interview, however, about Frank’s young wife/manager, Caitlin, who discovers she's pregnant with their first child. What begins as a lyrical prose poem about the creative process quickly knots into a layered narrative about love, family, art, missed chances, and how we constantly write and rewrite the stories of our lives. The most poignant moments of this self-proclaimed kinoroman, or cinema novel, focus not on Frank as artist but on Frank as wounded human, as terrified father-to-be, and on Caitlin as the woman who gave up her own dreams to follow her husband. Kiefer’s prose is spare and beautiful; like Frank’s white, sealed landscapes, the blank space on the pages carries great weight. One must also wonder whether this serves as a sort of ars poetica for Kiefer, one in which he considers his role in creation, in trying to stop time with words. There is a point where the interviewer observes, “What does he see there but himself, in all those landscapes….Everything a mirror.” In this way, this little novella carries the highest ambition: to articulate how art exists outside of time and is, at once, the purest and most selfish pursuit of all.
A gorgeous, human commentary on the paradox of modern life and modern art.Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9913141-3-3
Page Count: 193
Publisher: Nouvella
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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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