Metafictive, multilayered storytelling. But the book may leave many readers wondering what the point is.
A slim, suggestive, seafaring fable introduces the Icelandic author to America.
Something of an Icelandic Renaissance man (From the Mouth of the Whale, 2011, etc.), the novelist, poet and playwright has also collaborated with multimedia musical artist Björk (and earned an Oscar nomination in the process). The first American publication of this 2005 novel (which was honored as that year’s Best Icelandic Novel in his homeland) will likely attract a broader readership to an author revered by peers including David Mitchell and Junot Díaz. It leaps across centuries, blurs the line between myth and reality, and features a shape-shifting storyteller who was once a girl and then a gull before becoming a seaman. Yet, he isn’t the narrator, but the teller of one of the stories within the story, which is related by the fictional author of Memoirs of a Herring Inspector, an aged gentleman devoted to his “chief preoccupation, the link between fish consumption and the superiority of the Nordic race.” In 1949, his theories somehow lead to an invitation to voyage on a merchant ship, where he discovers to his consternation that the meals are rarely fish, but more often something like “horse sausage with mashed potatoes and white sauce,” and where each evening features stories from the aforementioned seaman, who finds inspiration in a sliver of wood (which later stirs the loins of the novel’s narrator and serves to link the storytelling impulse with the sexual urge). His tales concern Jason and the Argonauts, a mythical adventure that the storyteller apparently experienced firsthand. Amid theories about how man evolved from fish, dreams that make implausible stories seem even more far-fetched and the narrator’s realization of “the crew members’ tendency to behave as if everything I said was incomprehensible,” the narrative proceeds to a climax in which reality (fictional or otherwise) collapses in upon itself.
Metafictive, multilayered storytelling. But the book may leave many readers wondering what the point is.Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-374-28907-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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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