EMPATHY

by Sarah Schulman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1992

The hyper-observant, gritty-honest voice that characterizes all of Schulman's lesbian protagonists (People in Trouble, 1989; After Delores, 1988) is now cooler, steadier, and more refined--here, ""Anna O."" meets ""Doc,"" post-Freudian analyst to the denizens of the doomed Lower East Side, and she finds love and a measure of peace in the process. Jilted by a woman in white leather, and adrift in a world that rejects psychoanalysis, Marxism, all the good Jewish intellectual skills, Anna O. turns to Doc--a short, slightly pudgy Jewish guy who looks amazingly like Anna as a man. Funny about that. Anna is instantly helped by Doc even if he does live in a ""basic"" East Village apartment with no TV and barely any electricity because--observing this benign, slightly potbellied male--Anna feels liberated from two lifelong fears: ""I feared being told 'You want to be a man,' and I feared being told 'You hate men.' ""Doc tells Anna that she's empathy-less, that she suffers above all from an almost extinct ability to listen and care about other people's feelings--even the treacherous feelings of the woman in white. Anna confesses that in her whole long bumpy ride as a lesbian she's always been involved with ambivalent bisexuals or wannabe-straights. Finally, however, thanks to Doc, Anna has one last stormy scene with ""white leather"" and breaks through to a new level of self-acceptance--and to a brand-new love. Schulman, as always, peppers her novel with some wonderful raw insights straight from the edge of the world on the Lower East Side. But such a smart, uncompromising protagonist as Anna deserves a little dramatic momentum and a stronger plot.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1992

ISBN: 1551522012

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992

Categories: FICTION