Shoots out lots of sparks, but nothing ignites. (First printing of 25,000; author tour)
Soveida, the Mexican-American waitress narrating this unruly first novel, has such an enchanting voice and so willingly reveals all that it takes a while to catch on that she is never going to get to the point.
It's a shame, too, because Chavez (The Last of the Menu Girls, not reviewed) has created a wonderfully vibrant character whose little stories of life in the small New Mexico town of Agua Oscura are full of imaginative detail. As a religious young woman Soveida is fascinated by Saint Maria Goretti, who was raped and then killed. Later she learns about sex from an erotic-movie preview mistakenly shown to her elementary school class when they go to see The Song of Bernadette. At 15, Soveida begins working as a bus girl at a restaurant, where she eventually advances to waiting tables and starts writing ``The Book of Service,'' a collection of advice for young women thinly disguised as a waitressing guide. (The chapter on hands instructs servers not to wear rings because they will get dirty: ``Especially wedding, engagement, or friendship. They will only go down the drain sooner or later, and cause some kind of chafing.'') She herself marries twice, to a philanderer who leaves her for another woman and to a man afflicted with Peyronie's disease, a blood-vessel disorder that makes sexual excitement painful and intercourse impossible. After the latter's suicide, she takes up with a community-college professor of Chicano Culture and Tradition and Folklore. There are plenty of good ideas buried here: the different kinds of service in women's lives, academic distance from real life, the influence of upbringing. Unfortunately, none of these is presented as a central theme. Adding to the kitchen-sink feeling is the inclusion of documents ranging from Soveida's college papers (including her professor's comments and grades) to letters from former husbands and lovers.
Shoots out lots of sparks, but nothing ignites. (First printing of 25,000; author tour)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-374-15204-7
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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