Every stale bohemian pose issues from the fictional journals of two 20ish New Yorkers, a straight woman recently arrived from Ohio and a gay man already steeped in the city's debauched amusements. Their respective ``Fruit Cocktail Diaries'' (so named because of the fruit printed on their covers) are salvaged from a Lower Manhattan junk bazaar and read by an anonymous third person. It's all here: the crummy jobs—both forlorn romantics wait tables; the mondo-hip downtown venues populated with trashy lounge denizens and the odd rock star (``I turned around, and there was Bono, leaning against the elegant doorframe''); a parade of former boyfriends for him and a cryptic club god for her (``You know, the guy who stares into space and dances around it''); and the obligatory catalogue of late-century, pop-culture detritus. Nothing happens to either of these dunderheads and with good reason—they're bores. Glum party boy pines for the lost '70s glitz of Studio 54 and snorts coke while his sunnier female counterpart bungles after the aforementioned dance-floor deity, who might just turn out to be her co-diarist. That the plot's main tension resides in a sitcom case of mistaken sexuality is the least of this first novel's problems; it's easily trumped by the protagonists' boozy collision at a costume party. Things perk up after that—he gets hit on by a new boss, she recovers some self-esteem, they finally meet over a haircut. But who cares? Not even the promise of the hero's faux Kerouac road trip and the heroine's continuing search for Mr. Goodbar on the subway can save this. (9 b&w photos)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-11796-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
Worthy of the acclaim given The Joy Luck Club, Tan's engrossing second novel about Chinese-American culture continues the author's intricate exploration of mother-daughter relationships, generational differences, and the key way secrets define them. Pearl, herself the mother of two girls, has not yet told her mother Winnie what she has known for a while—that she has multiple sclerosis (their relationship has been strained ever since Pearl's father died when she was 14). Aunt Helen, who knows Pearl's "secret," threatens to tell Pearl's mother if Pearl won't do it herself. Helen then makes the same threat to Winnie—reveal her secret past to her daughter or Helen will. So Winnie sits down and tells Pearl the story of her life before coming to America and before her marriage to the man Pearl thinks is her father—a life of hell spent with a deeply disturbed, sadistic first husband, Pearl's real father. It is a life that encapsulates a strong belief in fate and luck and, unfortunately, the oppressed role of women in Chinese culture—one that continually summons up the image of the title: a symbol of the wronged but ever-forgiving wife. In the sheer power of conveying Winnie's secret life in China, Tan once again demonstrates her truly gifted storytelling ability. (Pearl is a less interesting character, but then again so is life in contemporary California.) One can only admire Tan's talent for capturing and synthesizing the complex cultural dynamics at work here and turning them into such an intriguing, harrowing tale.
Pub Date: June 27, 1991
ISBN: 0143038109
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ten years in the workaday progress of a New York Mafia sort of family dynasty tale with all the attendant flurries of great houses at war. Don Corleone is ruler of the Family, avenger and dispenser of favors, from judges boughten verdicts to rub-outs among the fiefdoms. The noble Don ages and there is the nagging worry as to who shall carry on. Eldest son Sonny is too impetuous; Freddie is a fornicator; Michael fancies a teaching career with his Yankee bride. Along with the manipulative, diplomatic and skull-smashing demands of the Eastern empire of real estate, manufacturing, and gambling, there is always the threat of treachery from within one unfortunate example of which snuffs out Sonny by the Jones Beach toll booths. Michael, forgetting the scholar's life, pumps bullets in revenge, is sent to Italy, and is finally returned miraculously intact after assassination attempts. It is Michael, after the Don's near murder and eventual death from heart failure who reasserts the Family as Number One in a coup which includes the garrotting of a traitorous brother-in-law. The scene roams from coast to coast, provides glimpses of the sex/love tangles of the Ladies Auxiliary, family fun and cosy Italian fiestas, boppings, bashings, shootings, hackings. A Mafia Whiteoaks, bound for popularity, once you get past the author's barely concealed admiration for the "ethics" and postulates of primitive power plays.
Pub Date: March 10, 1969
ISBN: 0451205766
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1969
BOOK TO SCREEN
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