Review by New York Times Review
"A HOUSE AMONG THE TREES," the new novel from the National Book Award winner Julia Glass, reads as if it were written with a future television mini-series in mind. Like an author in an annoying biographical note, it divides its time between New York City, Hollywood and the quaintly rural village of Orne, Conn. (Think "Martha Stewart Living" in a snow globe.) It is basically the story of half a dozen middle-aged members of the coastal elite trying to find love, recover from injuries inflicted by awful mothers and reconcile artistic integrity with the challenges of wealth management. So intensely televisual is this novel that in reviewing it, I've been unable to resist the temptation to cast it. At the center of the narrative is Mort Lear, a renowned children's book author and illustrator who bears more than a passing resemblance to Maurice Sendak (Kevin Spacey). As the first chapter opens, Mort has just died in a freak accident, falling from the roof of the house in Orne that he shares with Tomasina Daulair, known as Tommy (Julianne Moore), his beleaguered amanuensis, housekeeper, bookkeeper, lecture agent and intimate companion (except in the bedroom). It is Tommy who finds Mort's twisted body - a shock that's only compounded when she learns that, without alerting her, Mort has changed his will, naming her as his sole beneficiary and literary executor and instructing her to "widely disperse" his estate in order to raise funds for the establishment of a home for troubled boys in his native Tucson. This about-face - previously Mort had indicated that he would leave his literary and artistic remains to a museum in Long Island City that's already lining up donors for a new building - blindsides not just Tommy but the museum's curator, Merry Galarza (Amy Poehler), who's having troubles enough as it is, her husband having recently lefther for a younger woman after years spent trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child. Mort's death also threatens "The Inner Lear," a biopic that's about to go into production with Nicholas Greene, an Oscarwinning British actor who bears more than a passing resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch (Benedict Cumberbatch), in the title role. As conceived by its director, Andrew Zelinsky (Jason Alexander), the film will combine live action and animation to dramatize the sexual abuse Mort suffered as a child at the hands of the gardener at the Tucson hotel where his mother worked as a maid - an episode Mort had startled his friends by revealing in a New York Times interview with Calum Bonaventura (Cheyenne Jackson). The only trouble is, that encounter with the gardener may not have happened in quite the way Mort described it, if it happened at all - something Mort has admitted only to Nick in a series of emails that, at Mort's request, Nick has deleted. Which is why Nick, a stickler for method acting, has decided to go up to Orne to visit Tommy on the same weekend that Merry, the curator, in her desperation to persuade Tommy to leave Mort's estate to the museum, is planning to ambush her at Mort's house with the assistance of Tommy's brother, Danilo Daulair (Jeremy Piven), who has troubles - and secrets - of his own. Like the plot of any mini-series worth its salt, this complicated tale - and believe me, there's plenty I've leftout - relies heavily on the present tense and shifting points of view. Each chapter incorporates extensive dialogue (the script) as well as detailed descriptions of rooms and places (set design), bodies and clothes (costume design), qualities of light and season (location scouting). There's chitchat about salad and how annoying smartphones can be, a lot of oh-so-contemporary argot ("evalanche"), a lot of complaining and recrimination and interior rumination, and, in the last pages (for the straight characters at least), a sort of happy ending. The novel's two gay characters, Mort and his flamboyant younger lover, Soren Kelly (Chris Hemsworth), are killed offbefore the novel's action even starts, Kelly (natch) by AIDS. FRETFUL AND LUMPEN, Tommy is the novel's ostensible heroine - a woman from whom the show has always been stolen, and from whom, in the course of "A House Among the Trees," it is stolen again, this time by the dashing Nick, an actor who, despite being a 0.5 on the Kinsey scale and British in the extreme ("Crikey!"), seems to make a specialty of playing gay American men. Indeed, he owes his Oscar to "Taormina," an arty melodrama about a gay son and his awful mother, played by the wisecracking and wisdom-dispensing 50-something Dierdre Drake (Diane Lane). Much is made of the conniptions women go into over Nick, even the resolute and stolid Tommy, who, upon meeting him, finds herself unprepared for "how . . . indelible he is. Not sexy or dishy or hunky or any of those insufficiently two-dimensional teeny-bopper adjectives. And he's too thin to be 'handsome,' strictly speaking. But what he is - like a rose in a color you've never laid eyes on before or a dress in a store window that suddenly you dream of wearing on a wedding day you haven't even planned - is impossible to stop looking at, demanding memorization." It goes without saying that before we reach the last page, one of the novel's female characters will end up in bed with Nick. Nor, I think, will I be accused of giving anything away if I say that the winner of this "Queen for a Day" treat turns out to be the character with whom, as any market-research firm could tell you, the novel's core readership will be considered most likely to identify. What else can I say about "A House Among the Trees"? A few things. In contrast to the vast majority of contemporary novels I've read lately, I never found it boring. (My measure of boring is whether, when I read a novel, I forget to notice which page I'm on.) I appreciated the authority with which Glass led me through the highly politicized world of children's literature (new territory to me), her detailed if overlong summaries of Mort Lear's books, several of which I wished existed so that I could read them, the moments of insight and empathy that punctuate her narrative. And yet, for all that, I kept being reminded, as I read on and on, of the feeling I was leftwith after the retina-singeing weekend I spent binge-watching the first season of "Downton Abbey" - of being emptied out and, at the same time, overstuffed. In "Aspects of the Novel," E. M. Forster defined the difference between "story" and "plot" in this way: "in a story we say 'and then?'. . . . in a plot we ask 'why?' " Curiosity kept me reading "A House Among the Trees," yet, as Forster reminds us, in the novel curiosity is never enough. Julia Glass leads readers through the highly politicized world of children's literature. DAVID LEAVITT'S most recent novel is "The Two Hotel Francforts." He is co-director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the University of Florida.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 27, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When the celebrated children's-book author and illustrator Mort Lear dies in a fall at his Connecticut home, complications quickly ensue. There's his will, for starters. In it, he leaves his estate to Tomasina Tommy Daulair, his personal assistant of many years, even though he had led Merry Galarza, curator of the Contemporary Book Museum, to believe the museum would be the legatee (it holds a large amount of Lear's work on semipermanent loan). Then there is the motion picture that is to be made of Lear's life, starring Oscar-winning British actor Nicholas Greene. The novel rotates among these three characters, interspersed with the occasional flashback that provides context, including the evolution of Tommy's troubled relationship with her younger brother. Glass has created a compelling story with fully realized characters, though there is a whiff of the roman à clef; Lear's work and the complications of his legacy will inevitably remind readers of Maurice Sendak, though there is much here that is different. But both real person and fictional character inhabited the world of children's books, which Glass nicely contextualizes, demonstrating that she has done her homework (though she confuses Library Journal with School Library Journal). The result is a fascinating look at a world in which a creative artist becomes a hot property to be both honored and exploited.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A terrible attempt at a British accent for a minor character is actor Masterson's only misstep in this otherwise winning performance. Beloved children's literature icon Mort Lear has just died unexpectedly, leaving his longtime assistant Tomasina "Tommy" Daulair to pick up the pieces of his life, including a recently altered will and an in-progress biopic starring the British phenom Nicholas Greene. Reader Masterson excels when playing Mort in flashbacks; her gravelly and playful voice feels perfect for capturing Mort's complicated impulsivity. She also skillfully portrays the self-doubt and crushed hopes of Meredith, the curator of a new museum devoted to children's literature who received Mort's verbal promises of his literary inheritance but was ultimately left in the cold. Where the performance falls short is in Masterson's British accent for actor Nick Greene, which is awkward and inconsistent to the point of distraction. Listeners who are able to get past it will enjoy the layers of drama in this well-told story. A Pantheon hardcover. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Tomasina (Tommy) Daulair gets a terrible shock when children's author Mort Lear, famous for the beloved classic Colorquake, dies unexpectedly. Tommy is Mort's longtime assistant, though she is actually more like a wife to the gay author-except for the sex, as Tommy's brother Dani snidely points out. Tommy shares Mort's home, but after his death, she is shocked to learn that Mort has left the house and his entire estate to her; she will also be his literary executor. Meanwhile, Meredith, a high-strung museum curator, insists that Mort's artistic holdings were promised to her. There's also a movie about the young Mort in the works, and the charming British actor who is starring in it shows up. The characters in this complex and fascinating novel find themselves coming to terms with secrets and torments from the past as they learn more about Mort's life. VERDICT Since her first novel, Three Junes, Glass has explored family dynamics of all kinds with a warm yet never sentimental sympathy. She excels at bringing her many characters to life and at imagining vivid scenes from the rarified world of art and entertainment in this excellent new book.-Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The sudden death of a successful children's author leaves the survivors to grapple with his legacy and consider the secrets we all keep in this radiant latest from Glass (And the Dark Sacred Night, 2014, etc.).Yes, that famous gay artist bears a striking resemblance to Maurice Sendak, but Glass has been inspired rather than constrained by her prototype. Mort Lear is an original creation, still very much a presence in the novel as it unfolds following his accidental fall from the roof of his Connecticut home. Morty has unexpectedly named longtime live-in assistant Tomasina Daulair his heir and literary executor; he has also vindictively reneged on his promise to bequeath his archives to a New York museum. In addition to this embarrassment, Tommy must deal with the previously scheduled visit of Nicholas Greene, a newly minted movie star about to play Morty in a film. The deftly structured plot centers around that visit and its disruption by the arrival of Meredith Galarza, the jilted museum's director, and Tommy's resentful brother, Dani, who as a boy was the unwitting model for Morty's drawings of Ivo, protagonist of "the book that launched Lear like a NASA space shot." We also learn that Morty had confided to Nick a startling revelation of childhood trauma even more twisted than the story he publicly told of abuse by an older man. But Glass doesn't perpetuate the stereotype of tortured, exploitative genius; she gently explores the complex ways an artist transmutes and transcends his personal history in his work as well as the decisions people around him must make about how much they are willing to subordinate their lives to the needs of someone more gifted and driven. It's typical of the warmhearted Glass that her conclusion finds room for compromise and mutual fulfillment among her full-bodied, compassionately rendered characters. This is a fitting tribute to the man who brought boldness and emotional depth to children's literature: vivid without being simplistic, as grippingly readable as it is thoughtful. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
