Simon & Schuster

Dreaming in French

barbara — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

On the surface, Dreaming in French sounds like the type of book I would love. It’s about a strong-willed girl named Charlotte growing up in Paris during the 1970s until she and her mother are forced to move to New York. I love anything about Paris, especially during the 1970s with its yé-yé girl singers that ruled the charts, inventive fashion, and sexual freedom. I also love reading about New York during that time period, when a lot of powerful, creative music and art were coming to light.

Sadly, the book is not really about Paris or New York, but about a spoiled, pretentious girl and her equally spoiled, pretentious mother, Astrid. A teenage Charlotte can be forgiven for her self-absorption, but as we watch her grow up, she only becomes more selfish. Astrid is even more selfish than her daughter, breaking the family apart when she has an affair with a Polish dissident and, in a Kafkaesque twist, ends up in jail. Her daughters rally to Astrid’s side, but her faithful husband feels betrayed and will never forgive her. They divorce, and Astrid leaves for New York to start anew. Charlotte, who adores her mother, decides to go with her. Her sister Lea remains in Paris with their father Frank, while his Swedish secretary slowly carries out her plans to marry him.

Charlotte goes from a life of comfort to a life of… slightly less comfort. Her father provides her with some money, and she attends a private school after she and Astrid check out the local high school and find “a group of black girls…tough urban girls with knowing eyes.” This is but one of several racist statements McAndrew makes throughout the novel.

It is hard to sympathize with Charlotte’s troubles when it seems that she has everything going for her: she is thin, white, beautiful, extremely intelligent, and wealthy. She is aware of her privilege but never thinks about it extensively, providing the perfect example of how acknowledging privilege is not the same as understanding it. Rather than use her privilege to try and change the world or examine questions of inequality, Charlotte seems to take pride in how spoiled she is.

Charlotte reminded me a lot of Rory Gilmore from the TV show Gilmore Girls because she is also smart, pretty, and white, except that Rory is humble and likable, whereas Charlotte is not. No doubt due to her pedigree and upbringing, Charlotte gets into Yale, and busies herself studying post-structuralist feminism. At Yale she has a disturbing relationship with a man named Azher, who attempts to enter her almost brutally. Their forceful, violent sex and bordering-on-abusive relationship is treated with the same detached superficiality of everything else in the novel. McAndrew handles cancer, eating disorders, cross-cultural interactions, AIDS, and political uprisings with the aloof tone of one talking about the weather.

Eventually Charlotte comes into her own working for Glamour magazine and the reader is supposed to be happy for her, but Charlotte is still more of a petulant child than amiable heroine. McAndrew’s tendency to rely on clichés only exacerbates the situation. By the end of the novel Charlotte has discovered that she holds the key to her own happiness, her father has remarried a sweet widow who is also the mother of Charlotte’s childhood best friend, and her sister Lea is literally living happily ever after in a castle with her husband who’s a legitimate Prince. It’s all the stuff of an airplane book, and not a particularly good one at that.

The world really does not need another book about a privileged young woman trying to find herself through shopping and sex with men she doesn’t love. To this type of ridiculous, pointless novel, I say j’en ai marre—I’ve had enough.

Written by: Arielle Burgdorf, March 11th 2011

Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women

beth — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Rebecca Traister

Simon & Schuster

As we entered our hotel after a day of sightseeing while on vacation in New York City in September 1984, my father lifted me onto his shoulders so I could see what the fuss was all about in the lobby. The lights were bright and there were lots of tall men in suits all around us. With my father’s direction, I could see the backs of the heads of the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates trying to navigate the crowd. I can still picture the back of Geraldine Ferraro’s head; all I remember from that moment was that her hair was blond and in a hairstyle similar to my mother’s.

Rebecca Traister, a writer for Salon, introduces her blow-by-blow account of the 2008 presidential election with her first political memory from 1984: in the voting booth with her mom turning the lever to make a selection for the first female candidate to appear on a Democratic ticket for president. Traister and I are both in our mid-thirties, and I would argue that her experience in the most recent political election is representative of our generation of feminists.

Her book, Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women, provides a detailed and thrilling account of that epic race, including astute observations from a feminist perspective. She uniquely intertwines her personal interpretations with the nitty-gritty details of the historic campaigns, including critical reactions from feminists and women regarding the gendered nature of the media response and public debate surrounding Hilary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and other women involved in the election. She argues that the 2008 Presidential Race was a modern-day consciousness raising experience for a generation of women who grew up with easy access and little personal experience with—or at least little critical observation of—the patriarchal structures that surround them in the twenty-first century. She says that the story she tells is “about the country and its culture, how well we all reacted to the arrival of these surprising new figures on the presidential stage and what they showed us about how far we had come and how far we had yet to go.”

I found her internal struggle regarding which candidate to support during the primaries so similar to my own experience and resonant with the experience of many women in the United States during this election. She relies heavily on interviews with women—particularly feminists—from all corners of society. She interviews second wave feminists, pundits, journalists, bloggers, and newcomers to feminism as she exposes the gendered bias towards candidates that was not sufficiently or substantively addressed in the mainstream media during the election cycle. The overt sexism, the race/gender divide, and a nascent, conservative (and therefore questionable) feminist uprising are all analyzed ruthlessly and succinctly. Traister writes with command, intelligence, and a sense of humor.

Speaking of humor, she also discusses the role of comedians with a feminist twist, like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, as well as the role of women journalists, like Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow, all of whom were integral in the cultural interpretations of these political figures. Traister validates and applauds their roles in the process of influencing the electorate regarding gender interpretations of the election as well as long held biases against women in comedy and news.

The frequent refrain in Traister’s book is one in which she considers her mother. She tries to bring together the generations by using her personal connection to her mom’s politics along with the positions of second wave feminists and younger feminists like herself. She wonders how we can be dealing with these same issues that her mom dealt with so many years ago and she answers those questions both personally and politically. Though she highlights the differences in generations of feminists, she finds a way to unite their stories and experiences as they converge on this highly anticipated and much debated event in American history.

Written by: Ashley Josleyn French, November 19th 2010

Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn’t Stop Praying

mandy — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Abby Sher

Simon & Schuster

How does an eleven-year-old girl cope with the trauma of losing both her favorite aunt and her beloved father in the span of one calendar year? She may pray to God daily to ask Him to protect her loved ones. But what happens when prayer becomes more than just a comfort? What happens when it becomes a compulsion? This question is at the heart of Abby Sher’s memoir Amen, Amen, Amen.

The power of prayer has been the subject of much debate and research, with studies claiming that prayer can help heal the sick, even when the sick person has no relation to the people offering the curative incantation, nor knowledge of being prayed for. There are other studies that show people who pray experience feelings of relief: it makes sense that prayer could benefit those for whom religion is personally significant. If it’s good for people, even if it’s not provably efficacious, what’s the harm?

Abby Sher’s compulsions began when she was a small child—from tearing up paper napkins at the dinner table to tracing the wallpaper on her bedroom walls until her finger bruised. The impulses grew more invasive as Sher got older and calamity became a fixture in her life. An emotionally fragile pre-adolescent, Abby identified herself as the one to blame for the unexpected deaths in her family, and turned to God for help. But her sense of consolation was quickly overshadowed by a consuming fear of causing death and danger. Abby became convinced that giving herself fully to God and doing His protective bidding was the only way to ensure that no one else would meet an untimely, tragic fate.

For all the benefits that prayer might offer, it does not guarantee safety from disaster. But Abby was certain the lives of others were her responsibility, and hinged on her pact with God. To Abby, the balance of the world rested squarely on her shoulders, and the slightest misstep on her part set in motion scenarios with disastrous consequences.

No doubt this manner of irrational thinking will sound strange to most people, religious or not, and Sher does a good job of allowing the reader an insider’s view of the logic behind her delusions. Much of her behavior fell within the bounds of what is normal, especially in a devoutly Jewish context. On the surface, Abby appeared to be a staunch, if somewhat peculiar, follower of God. It is only when we learn what was going on in her head that Sher’s actions read as bizarre instead of faithful.

Ascetics throughout history have gotten into trouble for exhibiting behaviors far more extreme than Sher’s; the difference between mystical devotion and mental illness can be hard to construe. It is primarily though a lens of psychoanalysis that compulsive ritual begins to be regarded as illegitimate or destructive. In Sher’s case, even when she began seeing a therapist, her faith served to reinforce some of her more ritualistic actions, like daily fasting—a behavior that, when decontextualized, was revealed as severe anorexia.

By the time Abby meets her savior—an atheist man who helped her see her conduct as the result of self-loathing and delusion—I was glad to let go of my knee-jerk feminist disapproval of the knight in shining armor fable. Amen, Amen, Amen is a painful yet revelatory read that had this nonbeliever sending a healing mantra into the universe for Sher and others like her who live with a form of obsessive compulsive disorder masked by religion. In another time or place, Sher might have entered a hermitage. Today she will have to settle for appearances on TV talk shows.

Excerpted from Religion Dispatches

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, October 5th 2010

American Thighs: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Preserving Your Assets

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:02:00 +0000

By Jill Conner Browne

Simon & Schuster

Jill Connor Browne, the self-proclaimed Sweet Potato Queen, is fifty-five and lives in Jackson, Mississippi. Her newest book, American Thighs, is an amusing but lightweight look at aging from an older Southern woman's point of view. She can be quite funny—I love the phrase “our inexorable trudge into Geezerdom”—though the topics she covers tend towards the trite: how a new hairstyle won't help you get a new job or boyfriend, how silly it is for her daughter and her college classmates to dress up in fancy gowns for football games, and so on.

The book is a collection of anecdotes from Browne's life and those of friends, acquaintances, and readers, and with each chapter on a distinct subject, it lacks a unifying theme. In “No Matter What Skin You're In,” she relays several stories dealing with the importance of skin care and visiting your dermatologist. She notes that attitudes towards skin damage prevention have changed noticeably from when she was younger, when it was most people's goal to get a deep tan in the summer. “For many hapless White people, this was and is simply a physical impossibility—not that they allowed the absolute absence of melanin in their skin to serve as any kind of deterrent or discouragement.”

Using a semi-bawdy humor that is sprinkled throughout the book, Browne also tells an amusing story of a man who went to the dermatologist to have a mole near his genitals removed. The nurse administering his shot said, “Just a little prick.” Poor Jud could only respond, “That's just adding insult to injury.”

Another chapter, “Howdy, Sports Fans,” contains a story about Browne and two female friends catching a big fish on a lake, the football game rituals at her daughter's college (Ole Miss), and an inspirational story of a sixty-eight-year-old woman who became the gold medalist in the long jump in the Senior Olympics, although she had never been a fitness buff before. It's a good representation of the mixtures of smartass observations and incredible and inspiring stories in the book. Sprinkled throughout the text are Browne's “Asset Preserving Tips,” which include such epiphanies as “karma does not like smug,” and emphasizing the importance of exercise for both your body and mind.

I was put off by Browne's penchant for capital letters and colloquial phrases. Yes, you may say “prolly” instead of “probably” when speaking, but in a written text, please use the correct term. And while selective capitalization can effectively highlight big ideas, when used five times on a page it loses its punch.

Browne has a bit of the “folksy wisdom” some find endearing in Sarah Palin, but Browne is a lot smarter and isn't afraid to swear when the occasion calls for it, which makes for a rather refreshing antidote to the Southern belle persona. Like many “advice” books that are really anecdote collections, American Thighs does not offer anything revolutionary. It contains stories that are by turns cute, amusing, and inspirational, and reading it will certainly add some lightheartedness to your day.

Written by: Karen Duda, March 17th 2010

I’m Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen—My Journey Home

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:30:00 +0000

By Shoshana Johnson

Simon & Schuster

I was working in my college dining hall when I first caught wind of Jessica Lynch’s capture back in 2003. As I scraped steam trays, I compared our situations. She is a brave soldier somewhere in the sands of Iraq. I am a pansy who spent her days in purgatorial peace in the tundra of upstate New York. I didn’t know—many people didn’t know—that five other soldiers, including Shoshana Johnson, the first African-American female prisoner of war, were also being held. I’m Still Standing, recounts the capture and twenty-two-day imprisonment of Johnson and four male co-prisoners at the dawn of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Johnson is many things: an army cook, a survivor, a mother, and a brave woman who endured great hardship for her nation. She is not a professional writer, though, and it shows. Writing this book has undoubtedly been therapeutic for her, and it gave her a platform to tell the world her story, but as a reader I found myself desiring deeper contemplations on her experience than what she provided. We get a play-by-play, and I wanted a reflection.

This book presents several potentially riveting subjects, such as how the military portrays itself for the media, the ethics of keeping prisoners, the perception of the Iraqi people, and the experience of a female soldier. Being an American female solider serving in the Middle East seems like a particular double-whammy, since women remain a minority in the military and many countries in the Middle East traditionally treat women in a way many Westerners find unacceptable.

Johnson had many experiences during her ordeal that are unique to a female solider. When her gender was discovered by her captors, they stopped beating her while the beating of male soldiers continued. Johnson was held in a different room separate from her male co-prisoners for several days, and she hints about feeling ignored by the men. Later, after telling her captors that she was not married, some began to say that she should marry an Iraqi man, a comment she feared was not a joke. At one point a cloth was tossed over her body to conceal her exposed skin and she was told, “This is Iraq.” After her rescue, she found that many people assumed she was raped in captivity.

Many scenes are ripe with poignancy, but I feel she ran over them in an attempt to remember everything, and gave herself no room to meditate on what it meant. It seems every time a chance to explore subjects in depth was presented, the author merely skims the surface and moves on. I recall a quote from writer Lucy Grealy, who was asked how she remembered the details of her childhood that resulted in her book Autobiography of a Face. She replied, “I didn’t remember it. I wrote it.” Indeed, nonfiction writing needs to have that organic quality to it.

After Johnson’s rescue and return, the book morphs into a defense against accusations she says were piled upon her by the Army and the media. Many lines are unveiled attempts to send personal messages to people in her life, such as an old lover. That can be done in a private, rather than in a national publication.

Despite the limitations of the book, this soldier endured hardships, and I thank her for having the courage to fight for the nation and to tell her story.

Written by: Kelly Palka Gallagher, January 18th 2010

Girl Mary: A Novel

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Petru Popescu

Simon & Schuster

The Mary in Girl Mary__ is known by many names and revered by many people. Type “Mary” into Google and the first match is a Wikipedia entry for “Mary (mother of Jesus),” her best known role. She is a major player in the spirituality of millions, yet much of her life remains a mystery. Girl Mary, a work of fiction by Petru Popescu, takes Mary the mythical figure and makes her human while telling a captivating account of her life just before Jesus.

Popescu’s novel marries Judean history with that of Augustan Rome. It begins from the perspective of a young Roman who calls himself Apella, but later reveals his real name is Pontius Pilate—the man who would ultimately sentence Jesus to his crucifixion. He agrees to work as a spy for Augustus Caesar, who wants to declare himself God, by visiting a tribe of Jews from which Caesar has heard the son of God will come. Pilate is told to find a miracle and bring it back to Caesar so the Roman people can be convinced that it came from their emperor.

Mary, of course, belongs to the tribe Pilate visits whose people were banished from their home, Nazareth, by their king. Part of Pilate’s plan is to gain the tribe members’ trust by persuading the king to let them back into Nazareth. Pilate unintentionally falls for Mary throughout this process, but her heart belongs to Joseph, a carpenter she met when she lived in Nazareth. The novel follows Mary’s physical journey back home and her emotional journey of being in love.

Girl Mary brings Mary, Pilate, and Joseph to life in a way that religious texts don’t allow. The story is told from each of their perspectives, though Mary is the most developed character. Much of her development comes from the many conversations she has with God during her journeys. It’s clear she isn’t afraid to question God’s motives, especially when it comes to his creation of women and their suffering at the hands of men.

Popescu’s Mary is quite a bit less reserved than her biblical image. When Joseph asks her to marry him, she declines knowing she would be his third wife (he is set to marry two others before her). It’s clear that she values herself, and Joseph, too much to be his third. In a time when women are used as bartering chips, she acts her own negotiator and haggles Joseph into making her his first wife. Throughout the book, she proves that a woman can be virtuous without having to be submissive to those around her.

In Christianity, Mary is often used as symbol of what all women should aspire to be: pure and virtuous. However, Mary’s level of purity is an unattainable standard. In religious texts, she remains a virgin despite being pregnant with Jesus because he was conceived by a miracle of God. Popescu’s Mary is not a virgin. She has sex with Joseph, which leads God to plant the seed of his son into her womb. It’s a very small part of the book, but indicative of the story Popescu has created. Even though his novel is fiction, its detail and emotion make it feel more realistic than the texts—believed to be based on historical facts—from which the story originally came.

Popescu’s Mary is not only relatable, but the purity and virtue she exemplifies is attainable. He didn’t change her or her story much, but he made them both more rounded and a joy to read.

Written by: Jill Hindenach, December 24th 2009

Never Make the Same Mistake Twice: Lessons On Love and Life Learned the Hard Way

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:04:00 +0000

By Nene Leakes, Denene Millner

Simon & Schuster

Although I had never watched The Real Housewives of Atlanta, I was immediately drawn to Nene Leakes’ story even without knowing who she was. Once I opened this book, I did not put it down. Leakes' story is full of so much courage—growing up without her mother, being a single mother, surviving an abusive relationship and becoming a successful business woman on her own terms.

Never Make the Same Mistake Twice is written very conversationally—conveying Leakes' voice throughout the book. Leakes is unapologetic, taking pride in her decisions and the way she carries herself. While reading her memoir, I couldn't help but think: this woman rocks.

What I admired most about Leakes' autobiography is her frankness about how she survived the domestic abuse, which included a kidnapping incident. She bravely left in the middle of the night to protect herself and her young son. As a fellow survivor of abuse, I read Leakes' recount with tears in my eyes.

In part of the book, Leakes reveals her past work as an exotic dancer. While stripping is highly debated in the feminist community, Leakes divulges she did what she needed to do to support herself and her son. For Leakes, this job gave back her confidence after it had been damaged by the abuse. Even if you don't agree with her views, you have to admire her openness.

Since I knew I couldn't give a full review without watching at least an episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, I turned on Bravo. I'm now a full addict, watching the episodes over and over with the On Demand channel. The Nene in the show is exactly the Nene in the book. In addition, the latest episodes even show Leakes working on the book, and traveling home to Atlanta with her co-writer Denene Millner. And yes, Leakes does spill some juicy details about the show in her book. But even people who have never seen The Real Housewives of Atlanta can appreciate this memoir, especially those who have gone through the same issues.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, December 23rd 2009

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Jennet Conant

Simon & Schuster

Conant, a former journalist, is a thorough researcher. In this book, she digs into the secret wartime propaganda work that Roald Dahl and his British colleagues were assigned to do to drum up American support for World War II. Many official documents about this secret ring of spies were only declassified in 1998, and many of them remain legally inaccessible—and the author notes the difficulty of having to distinguish who is telling tall tales about their actual work.

That said, her recreation of the events that happened during the last years of WWII and Franklin Delano Roosevelt seem to spring to life from the page. The book's colorful cast of characters reads like a “Who's Who” of the political and celebrity elite of the era, including FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, Ian Fleming, David Ogilvy, Clare Boothe Luce, and Lyndon Johnson, among others. Drawing from correspondence and interviews with dozens of people, Conant vividly recreates England's wartime tension, which coincided with Washington's reckless socializing and split political opinions on how much “help” to give to the British while they were fighting the Nazis.

In the midst of this serious situation are fun moments—tales of buildings that have floors without corresponding elevator buttons, and fake pens that can set off tear gas – where it seems like you're reading a James Bond novel. This is all the more interesting in light of the fact that Fleming would go on to pen those world-famous books, which would later be made into movies.

Conant's attention to detail and brilliant reconstruction of events that happened more than sixty-five years ago make The Irregulars a quick and interesting read, but also a maddening one: as she herself points out, Dahl and his fellow spies were happy to work in an environment where women were mere accessories or means to an end. Each female in the book was blatantly used for her looks, her body, her money, her influence, or some combination thereof. If Dahl and his cohorts, married or not, also happened to pull them into the sack, well, that was just an extra perk.

It's said that you should never meet your heroes; I'd qualify that by adding that you should never read biographical works about them, either. I grew up loving Dahl's books, particularly because of the way the characters thumbed their noses at authority (which he himself did in real life, almost costing himself his wartime assignments on a number of occasions). As a child I assumed that Dahl was a person I'd like to meet; after reading The Irregulars, I have to say I was left with the idea that he was a skirt-chasing, adulterous, sexist pig. If you can get past that, hold your nose and read this book.

Written by: M.L. Madison, December 9th 2009

Fatherless Daughters: Turning the Pain of Loss into the Power of Forgiveness

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Pamela Thomas

Simon & Schuster

I recently saw an Oprah show on hoarding. At a certain point during the program, the two women featured on the show said they could trace this psychological condition back to losing their father. Both women were married when they lost their fathers (one is now divorced and the other is separated from her husband) and both have children. I mention this because in our society we treat grief as a luxury we can’t afford to dwell on rather than a necessary part of life we can’t avoid, and this lack of compassion and understanding for grief and loss seems to resurface in myriad ways in people’s lives.

When I lost my father three years ago to complications related to Alzheimer’s disease, even though his death was not entirely unexpected, I found myself thrown into a maelstrom of emotions. As a freelance writer and editor, I couldn’t have imagined returning to work after the typical one or two weeks of mourning that most companies typically allot to their employees. I also found that our culture exerts a certain amount of pressure on one to get back to life as quickly as possible and not dwell in your grief for too long. While I tried to get back on track both personally and professionally, my unfinished grief seemed to haunt me, and I found myself feeling unmoored and ungrounded in the world. In my grief journey, I have continued to seek out books and resources to help me understand how to navigate through this uncharted territory.

Reading Fatherless Daughters is another step in this process. In this book, Pamela Thomas explores the impact that the loss of a father has on women of all ages. Whether through death, abandonment or divorce, the loss of a father has a profound influence on a woman’s life. For this book, Thomas interviewed women ranging in age from nineteen to ninety-four. Most of the participants lived in the U.S., but she also spoke to women living in Canada, Mexico, and Japan.

Thomas explores our commonly held attitudes about fatherhood and provides a historical and cultural perspective. She references various works on the subject, including Luigi Zoja’s book, The Father: Historical, Psychological and Cultural Perspectives. As Zoja points out, the concept of fatherhood came late in our evolutionary process, and our notions of masculinity and fatherhood have traditionally been at odds with one another. The idealized version of fatherhood from 1950s television shows, like Ozzie and Harriet, has often contrasted sharply with the reality of fathers who viewed their primary role of that as breadwinners.

While one might assume that losing one’s father to death is easier than losing a father to divorce or abandonment, this isn’t always the case. Every woman’s journey of grief and loss is unique, but there are some common themes such as the primary roles that a father represents in a woman’s life: protector, guide to the world at large, breadwinner, alternative parent, second opinion, and male role model. The loss of this important figure in one’s life can have a devastating impact on one life. Allen also devotes a section of the book to the stages of child development and how losing a father at a young age can have a lasting impact on one’s life. When a woman loses her father at an early age, she tends to experience more insecurity and doubt in her life often manifesting in relationship related issues such as fear of abandonment, anger, low self-esteem, problems with assertiveness, and issues with commitment.

While I found this book to be a well researched and informative read, I found I could only read a few chapters at a time. However you choose to read this book, the fact remains that we will all experience loss and grief in our lives. The compassion we extend to ourselves and others during this time seems to be key to finding our way to the other side of grief. This book can be a helpful guide for that regard.

Written by: Gita Tewari, November 25th 2009

Prospect Park West

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:07:00 +0000

By Amy Sohn

Simon & Schuster

Brooklyn’s famously high-end and yuppie Park Slope neighborhood is nearly a character itself in Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West. The book follows the lives of four women living in the neighborhood. There is Melora Leigh, a troubled actress, who joins the neighborhood co-op for good PR. Her time there ties her to Karen Shapiro, an overly protective mother and social climber desperate for a new apartment in the best school district. Lizzie O’Donnell is a “former lesbian” living with her husband and child, but still drawn to women. Her attention focuses on Rebecca Rose, another mom, who hasn’t been touched by her husband in the year and a half since she gave birth.

The book seems aimed at subtly making fun and illuminating the foibles of stereotypical yuppie mothers as well as the new hipster mother. It’s like a filled out gossip column or blog on the lives of overly privileged women. The struggles of being a mother are mentioned, but it is incidental to the women’s sex lives and neuroses. The stories weave together fairly well, though the plot line that connects Karen and Melora seems overly fanciful. At times, I found myself forgetting the connections between the characters and having to flip back to figure out who was being discussed.

Occasionally throughout the text are small chapters written in italics and from the perspective of a few of the male characters in the book. They don’t seem to add much to the book, as they don’t flesh out the male characters enough.

The book ends a bit anti-climactically. I didn’t feel let-down, but more "oh, now it’s done." I suppose Prospect Park West is simply giving a snapshot (in this case a 400 page snapshot) of the women’s lives. There is no grand climax in the action, because the women’s lives simply carry on, much like in real life.

For fans of chick lit and lighter fare, pick this book up. Otherwise, you can give it a miss.

Written by: Kristin Conard, November 16th 2009

The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:09:00 +0000

By Helene Cooper

Simon & Schuster

Helene Cooper’s memoir about growing up in Liberia and moving to the United States paints a portrait of a girl trapped between two cultures and countries worlds apart from one another. Cooper is the descendant of freed African American slaves who returned to Africa to found Liberia in the early 1800s. Her upbringing was a privileged one, as a member of the small Liberian upper class composed almost entirely of the descendants of Black American settlers. Sheltered by her family’s wealth and privilege, Cooper grows up relatively oblivious to the growing tensions and inequities in Liberian society. She doesn’t seem to understand how unequal and unfair the distribution of wealth and power was in Liberia.

The contradictions of a small and wealthy elite living within a very poor country are glaringly apparent, especially when her parents decide to “get” a sister for her after she complains of being afraid to sleep alone at night. The “sister” they obtain, Eunice, comes from the poor class of Liberians. A relatively common practice in Liberian society was for poor children to come live as sons and daughters of the upper class. Eunice’s mother sent her to live with another family, as this would give Eunice a better opportunity to succeed in life. Eunice becomes a part of the family, but is never completely embraced as a true daughter. This is particularly the case when they end up leaving her behind when a bloody coup in 1980 forced Helene’s family to flee the country and immigrate to America. Once in the U.S., Cooper avoids talking about her homeland, embarrassed of being associated with a country that the rest of the world saw on the nightly news as being riddled by uncontrolled violence and grisly civil war.

The House at Sugar Beach alternates between tender childhood memories at an idyllic beach house in Liberia to Cooper's life after the coup as she struggles to find her own identity and "make it" in the United States.

Written by: Liz Simmons, November 5th 2009

American Adulterer

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:29:00 +0000

By Jed Mercurio

Simon & Schuster

I’ll admit I am neither a friend of celebrity culture or the particular brand of it that centers on the Kennedys. I am, however, interested in sexual politics and thus in the normative institutions of marriage and monogamy and the hardly less institutionalized behaviors of male bonding. In many ways Jed Mercurio’s American Adulterer is a riposte to Ruth Francisco’s The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which a Publisher’s Weekly review described as a “fictionalized peek behind Camelot [that] will satisfy only prurient interests.” Both novels are understandable constructs that allow conjecture from the historical record while allowing the authors and their publishers to evade the consequence of potential libel suits. Although the reviewer read only excerpts of the Francisco novel, hers is more novelistic and even literary than Mercurio’s.

American Adulterer might be described as an apologia for habitual, compulsive adultery during the time a character—called "the Subject" by the omniscient authorial voice speaking in present tense—spent as President of the United States, with flashbacks to early periods of his life sufficient to shed light on the behavior as exhibited in the White House under conditions of scrutiny and Secret Service security. A medical doctor, the author also regales us with clinical details of the subject’s multiple maladies—adrenal insufficiency, a painful back, gastrointestinal disease, allergies, and the side effects of steroid therapy. A sickly youth, the subject nonetheless served in the military and was a war hero, but by the time he reached the White House is poor health, managed by a team of physicians and a rogue Dr. Feelgood. A back brace is fingered as a contributing cause to his shooting, proving lethal in the final pages.

An account of how compulsive sexuality can jeopardize careers of men, especially powerful men, is a useful corrective for feminists more commonly concerned with the destabilizing effects romance and sexual obsession can have on women, with dangerous consequences to their educations and careers. As the narrative proceeds from ejaculation to ejaculation (and from bowel movement to bowel movement), readers who are after more than prurience will become aware of the vast protective apparatus that props up public figures—and I mean more than the Secret Service—the advisers and administrative infrastructure on which they depend and which have a minute by minute view of one’s conduct of life. How these constrain the subject’s behavior is a timely reminder for those who look to a particular individual as a hero of reform. Knowledge about someone’s predilection for fellatio under a desk is not the only leverage outside interests have on a political figure. And for those, like me, not particularly attracted to political figures, the familiar rationalizations for male sexual behavior suggest the continuing need for further explication of sexual politics, a half-century after these fictional facts took place.

Written by: Frances Chapman, September 23rd 2009

Do Not Deny Me: Stories

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:20:00 +0000

By Jean Thompson

Simon & Schuster

Do Not Deny Me is a collection of twelve short stories that represent literary fiction at its very best. Each tale is beautifully crafted, with precise and striking phrases and detailed, relatable characters. The first story, “Soldiers of Spiritos,” hints at the writer’s opinions on literary criticism. An aging English professor and his discouraged student find that they share a love of dramatic literature and a distaste for modern criticism that replaces appreciation with overwrought analysis.

There’s much here to appreciate and, if one is so inclined, to analyze. Thompson is renown in literary circles for her sharp wit, and it’s easy to see why, whether you read purely for enjoyment, or dwell on the variety of literary techniques, which include second person narration (“The Woman at the Well”), peripheral character narration (“Little Brown Bird”), and an unreliable narrator (“Mr. Rat”).

The title story is an eerie account of a young woman’s reaction to her boyfriend’s sudden death. She encounters a stranger with questionable psychic powers, and despite her skepticism, longs to find comfort in the idea of supernatural forces. Another exceptional story is “Escape,” a deeply affecting narrative about a man who suffers brain damage and has an increasingly antagonistic relationship with his wife and caretaker. Frustrated with his helplessness and his wife’s ability to control him, he becomes more and more reckless in his attempts to get away. It’s easy to imagine this story on an AP Literature exam ten years from now.

“Wilderness” juxtaposes a love letter from a Walden-Pond wannabe environmentalist with the recipient’s Thanksgiving weekend in the suburbs. The protagonist is surprised to find her former best friend has become a matronly mother of two teenage boys—and even more surprised to find that her friend’s husband is having an affair.

“Little Brown Bird” is the story of an overlooked young girl who reaches out to a neighbor. The neighbor suspects the girl is being abused but doesn’t know how to help, and fears retribution if she shares her suspicions. “Liberty Tax” is a meditation on how people in financial distress rationalize unethical or illegal behavior. “Treehouse” details a man’s attempt to remove himself from the burdens of his humanity by building a new home for himself in his own backyard. “Mr. Rat” features an incredibly unlikable (and sexist) protagonist who gets one of his co-workers fired, and may or may not have driven another to suicide. Readers are left wondering why betrayal comes so easily to this character, and if it is, as he claims, because he is “a triumph of natural selection.”

“Triumph” is an excellent way to describe this collection. The variety of themes, situations, and characters provide glimpses into different experiences of modern American life and leave readers with a wealth to reflect upon. Every story is so full of insight and poetry, readers will find themselves underlining entire passages and longing to discuss them with literary friends.

Written by: Kellie Powell, June 10th 2009

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels

admin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:27:00 +0000

By Sarah Wendell, Candy Tan

Simon & Schuster

Romance is a huge market, the most popular kind of fiction—and one of the most maligned. In the introductory chapter of Beyond Heaving Bosoms, the authors quip, “Let’s face it: romance novels, with their titty-licious covers, overwrought cover copy, and genre constraints are an easier piñata to smack around than most.” Despite the genre’s flaws, the authors started their blog, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, because they love romance novels and didn’t think it was receiving the in-depth scrutiny it deserved as fiction’s greatest money-maker. They ask, “Are romance novels really candy-coated porn or vehicles by which we understand our sexual and gender politics?” The short answer is: quite possibly, both.

Whether you love romance, or love to mock it—or, like the authors, both—there’s plenty to enjoy in Beyond Heaving Bosoms. Instead of numbered chapters, the book is divided into sections such as “Chapter Cleavage,” “Chapter Codpiece,” and “Chapter Secret Cowboy Baby.” There’s plenty of lovingly-written satire in the Smart Bitches Dictionary, the “Mad Libs” section, and a lengthy “interactive” romance parody in the style of the once-popular “Choose Your Own Adventure” novels. There are e-mails between members of the International Consortium of Heroes, a hypothetical hero and heroine pleading their case before Judge Judy, the Ten Commandments of Heroine Conduct, and an entire chapter devoted to the mockery of ridiculous cover art.

In addition to all the fun and games, there is insightful literary criticism. The book manages to be educational and subtly persuasive, as well as hilarious. The authors identify protagonist and villain archetypes, investigate the tying together of virginity and purity, re-imagine the romance novel as a coming-of-age narrative, and meditate on the cultural implications of “the heroine’s irresistible Magic Hoo Hoo and the hero’s untamable Wang of Mighty Lovin’.”

It’s hard to deny that by and large, romance novels are problematic for feminists. There are certainly feminists who love romance, but some common genre conventions are hopelessly misogynist. Rape is common in what the authors label “Old Skool Romance,” and within the confines of a book’s story, it is often seen as an acceptable means of “seduction.” But, they note that the genre has gone through a lot of changes in the last few decades, and as societal attitudes about rape have changed, its treatment in literature has also evolved. Perhaps paradoxically, there is no other genre that celebrates female sexuality and pleasure so enthusiastically. Romance is a genre written by women and read by women, and it is a wide umbrella with room for feminism underneath.

Written by: Kellie Powell, June 9th 2009

American Thighs: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Preserving Your Assets

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:58:00 +0000

By Jill Conner Browne

Simon & Schuster

I admit that the title of this book had me at hello. I was almost certain that this would be a tongue-in-cheek look at the perils of aging gracefully and include sanguine wisdom about how to preserve your assets and your dignity (if at all possible) when making the journey from—as Browne puts it “cute girl to ma’m.”

Jill Connor Browne, New York Times best selling author of a whole series of Sweet Potato Queen books, writes with humor and aplomb about the small vanities that we humanoids tend to cling to as we pass from nubile youth, or “larva”—as Browne calls anyone under forty—to geezerdom, another word that Browne favors. And men are not immune to this very human condition.

A small disclaimer: I’m not one who typically gravitates to books that fall in the humor category. I always assume they won’t be that funny, but this book had me chortling, snorting and guffawing halfway through the first chapter. The following “Asset Preserving Tip” that she features at the end of each chapter might explain why:

Everybody’s always pretending to be something they’re not. When you’re thirteen, you’re always trying to make people think you’re eighteen. (Note: Girls can occasionally get away with this—so if you’re a guy—beware—be very aware—because you can end up in prison being called “Darlene.”) When you’re eighteen you want people to believe you are twenty-one. Then, when you close in on thirty, you start lying in the direction. So much simpler to just be what we happen to be, in my opinion. Lying, about anything, is just too tedious to fool with…"

Another small disclaimer: the larvae amongst you may not find this book as funny as I did, but any book that makes me laugh is one that I’ll give a thumbs up to.

Written by: Gita Tewari, March 19th 2009