Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. 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. And the crying need for clean and pleasant romance will find a measure of answer here.įour 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. Literary Guild selection for November will give it the necessary impetus. There's charm here-there's a gay, English spotting of humor that makes the romance and the slight story almost a natural for the Thirkell followers-for enthusiasts of the Jane Austen tradition. Both girls determine that Simon shall be Rose's-and almost too late, with Rose in London shopping for her wedding, Cassandra realizes that it is Simon she loves, while Rose loves Neil. They are fascinated by the whole unlikely thing-the old castle, the girls, the identity of Mortmain, whose one great novel Simon knew. Rose wishes on a devil-and two Americans, Simon and Neil, appear, lost en route to the property Simon has inherited. At the moment, the family is stale-mated-the father refusing to write, the stepmother able to pose only once in a while, Rose, beautiful and despairing of meeting anyone eligible to marry, even their friend, the librarian, can offer no solution.

The story is told in diary form by Cassandra, middle child of novelist Mortmain. The author of popular theatrical hits, Autumn Crocus, etc., has produced a first novel, a gentle, genteel story of English eccentrics, kindly Americans, and an artless, unworldly background that has no current feel.

I capture the castle pages