Novelists Rose and Texier, editors of the now-defunct Between C & D, bring together 16 stories by writers who prowl ``the edges of human experience and literary form.'' After their breathless introduction, with its frequent use of the word ``edge,'' the editors turn to many of the writers best known from their Lower East Side magazine, all of whom testify to the peculiar nature of romance in a time of disease and safe sex. The two least sentimental pieces are by gay men. David Feinberg's ``Breaking Up with Roger'' is a sad, campy tale of love between two HIV-positive men with nothing in common except a race against time. And David Wojnarowicz's ``From the Diaries of a Wolf Boy'' chronicles the down-and-out (and risk-taking) escapades of a gay hustler. Pieces from William Vollmann's The Rainbow Stories and A.M. Homes's The Safety of Objects seem selected for their self- conscious weirdness. Likewise, fairly typical and incoherent excerpts from Barry Gifford and Kathy Acker. Darius James's self- explanatory ``The Blackman's Guide to Seducing White Women with the Amazing Power of Voodoo'' is not nearly as witty as his recent novel, Negrophobia. And Trey Ellis's tale of unrequited interracial romance leads nowhere slowly. Women attracted to the wrong kinds of men narrate Lynn McFall's ``Bitter Love'' (the heroine loses an eye in a poolroom catfight); Lisa Blaushild's ``Asking For It'' (a lonely woman writes a love letter to her unknown rapist); and Daytona Beach's ``The Kid'' (a 35-year-old woman looking for a man who can move like her vibrator seduces her girlfriend's 14-year-old son). David Foster Wallace's overly long saga of politically correct love (``Order and Flux in Northampton'') is as strained and sophomoric as his previous work. And the two stories by the editors are as ineptly written as their throwaway introduction. Last gasps from a dying (and never that vital) literary scene.
Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1993
ISBN: 0-393-30965-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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