Breezy, but likely to move only existing fans of the Sweet Potato Queens.
Five high-school friends from Jackson, Miss., forge an enduring bond, based on their mutual belief in each other’s fabulousness.
As an antidote to the snooty clubs that won’t have them, offbeat teens Jill, Mary Bennett, Patsy, Tammy and Gerald come together to form the Sweet Potato Queens, founded on the principle “If it ain’t fun, we ain’t doing it.” Sharing humor and outsider status in school, the pals regularly get together to eat lots of pork and to gossip, and each year they dress in red wigs and sequin gowns and attend the St. Patrick’s Day parade. The friends remain close long after graduation, despite taking divergent paths. Rich-girl-with-a-secret Mary Bennett heads off to soap-star fame in Hollywood; Gerald (to no one’s surprise) comes out in San Francisco; and beautiful aspiring singer Tammy becomes a local TV weathergirl who drowns her numerous insecurities in a string of extramarital affairs. Midwestern-transplant Patsy moves to Atlanta and becomes a mom, while Boss Queen Jill muddles through a dull job and even duller love life. Tall and athletic, she eventually hits her stride, finding satisfaction as an in-demand personal trainer and a popular local columnist. Meanwhile, the queens experience the requisite laughter, tears and general messiness of life, all culminating in a last-minute London intervention to save Tammy from her latest bad decision. This fictionalized account of the origins of Browne’s real-life SPQs (The Sweet Potato Queens’ Wedding Planner and Divorce Guide, not reviewed, etc.) has a slapdash feel. Co-written with Gillespie, author of the Bottom Dollar Girls series, it reads less like a novel than what it is: the latest extension of this successful southern-fried brand.
Breezy, but likely to move only existing fans of the Sweet Potato Queens.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-7432-7827-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2006
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one...
An inordinately moving, electric exploration of two warring cultures fused in love, focused on the lives of four Chinese women—who emigrated, in their youth, at various times, to San Francisco—and their very American 30-ish daughters.
Tan probes the tension of love and often angry bewilderment as the older women watch their daughters "as from another shore," and the daughters struggle to free themselves from maddening threads of arcane obligation. More than the gap between generations, more than the dwindling of old ways, the Chinese mothers most fear that their own hopes and truths—the secret gardens of the spirit that they have cultivated in the very worst of times—will not take root. A Chinese mother's responsibility here is to "give [my daughter] my spirit." The Joy Luck Club, begun in 1939 San Francisco, was a re-creation of the Club founded by Suyuan Woo in a beleaguered Chinese city. There, in the stench of starvation and death, four women told their "good stories," tried their luck with mah-jongg, laughed, and "feasted" on scraps. Should we, thought Suyuan, "wait for death or choose our own happiness?" Now, the Chinese women in America tell their stories (but not to their daughters or to one another): in China, an unwilling bride uses her wits, learns that she is "strong. . .like the wind"; another witnesses the suicide of her mother; and there are tales of terror, humiliation and despair. One recognizes fate but survives. But what of the American daughters—in turn grieved, furious, exasperated, amused ("You can't ever tell a Chinese mother to shut up")? The daughters, in their confessional chapters, have attempted childhood rebellions—like the young chess champion; ever on maternal display, who learned that wiles of the chessboard did not apply when opposing Mother, who had warned her: "Strongest wind cannot be seen." Other daughters—in adulthood, in crises, and drifting or upscale life-styles—tilt with mothers, one of whom wonders: "How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?"
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one that matches the vigor and sensitivity of Maxine Hong Kingston (The Warrior Woman, 1976; China Men, 1980) in her tributes to the abundant heritage of Chinese-Americans.Pub Date: March 22, 1989
ISBN: 0143038095
Page Count: -
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1989
BOOK REVIEW
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SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fable about the consolatory and strengthening powers of religion flounders about somewhere inside this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award. The story is told in retrospect by Piscine Molitor Patel (named for a swimming pool, thereafter fortuitously nicknamed “Pi”), years after he was shipwrecked when his parents, who owned a zoo in India, were attempting to emigrate, with their menagerie, to Canada. During 227 days at sea spent in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger (mostly with the latter, which had efficiently slaughtered its fellow beasts), Pi found serenity and courage in his faith: a frequently reiterated amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian beliefs. The story of his later life, education, and mission rounds out, but does not improve upon, the alternately suspenseful and whimsical account of Pi’s ordeal at sea—which offers the best reason for reading this otherwise preachy and somewhat redundant story of his Life.
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-100811-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
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