Ryman's sequel to Olivia and Jai (1990)a tale of lust, racism, and honor in the British Rajhas noble intentions but lacks the subtlety and restraint to realize them. The story of the Raventhornes continues in 1870 with Olivia, in a laudanum haze, mourning the memory of her beloved Jai, a Eurasian revolutionary hanged 13 years earlier for his participation in the Bibighar massacre, a savage attack on hundreds of British women and children. The massacre's specter hovers over Olivia's son and daughter: Despite their wealth, both Amos and Maya are shunned in Calcutta, branded as half-castes unacceptable in either British or Indian society. Maya's prospects improve when Christian Pendlebury appears on the scene, new to India's civil service and impervious to local prejudices. The couple's romance, however, faces opposition from all sides. Olivia doubts Christian's fidelity; Christian's father, Sir Jasper (who has vile secrets and schemes of his own), is repelled by Maya's impure Eurasian lineage; and Kyle Hawkesworth, a dissident promoting Eurasian liberties, views Maya's romance as an attempt to escape her painful heritage. Among needless plot machinations is the arrival of Alistair Birkhurst, Olivia's vengeful son from a loveless first marriage, determined to usurp Amos at every turn; the story, though, gains cohesion from Olivia's unremitting search for the truth concerning Jai's death: the eventual exposure of a government coverup proves his innocence. Finally, the revelation of deadly secrets, a suicide, attempted murder, arson, near insanity, and brotherly reconciliation bring all to a close with breakneck speed, leaving Maya still unmarried but finally content with her identity, a happy future promised. The pleasures offered by distinctive characters and a fine sense of period mores are diminished by a convoluted plot and painful overwriting (``the mauve fingers of dawn pushed aside the indigo shrouds of night''). (First printing of 35,000)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13200-X
Page Count: 640
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1995
Sometimes funny, sometimes silly, sometimes quite sad—i.e., an accurate portrait of life in one's 50s.
The further adventures of Candace and her man-eating friends.
Bushnell (Killing Monica, 2015, etc.) has been mining the vein of gold she hit with Sex and the City (1996) in both adult and YA novels. The current volume, billed as fiction but calling its heroine Candace rather than Carrie, is a collection of commentaries and recounted hijinks (and lojinks) close in spirit to the original. The author tries Tinder on assignment for a magazine, explores "cubbing" (dating men in their 20s who prefer older women), investigates the "Mona Lisa" treatment (a laser makeover for the vagina), and documents the ravages of Middle Aged Madness (MAM, the female version of the midlife crisis) on her clique of friends, a couple of whom come to blows at a spa retreat. One of the problems of living in Madison World, as she calls her neighborhood in the city, is trying to stay out of the clutches of a group of Russians who are dead-set on selling her skin cream that costs $15,000. Another is that one inevitably becomes a schlepper, carrying one's entire life around in "handbags the size of burlap sacks and worn department store shopping bags and plastic grocery sacks....Your back ached and your feet hurt, but you just kept on schlepping, hoping for the day when something magical would happen and you wouldn't have to schlep no more." She finds some of that magic by living part-time in a country place she calls the Village (clearly the Hamptons), where several of her old group have retreated. There, in addition to cubs, they find SAPs, Senior Age Players, who are potential candidates for MNB, My New Boyfriend. Will Candace get one?
Sometimes funny, sometimes silly, sometimes quite sad—i.e., an accurate portrait of life in one's 50s.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4726-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Chicana writer Castillo (whose reputation until now has been mostly regional) brings a warm, sometimes biting but not bitter feminist consciousness to the wondrous, tragic, and engaging lives of a New Mexico mother and her four fated daughters. Poor Sofi! Abandoned by her gambler husband to raise four unusual girls who tend to rise from adversity only to find disaster. ``La Loca,'' dead at age three, comes back to life—but is unable to bear the smell of human beings; Esperanza succeeds as a TV anchorwoman—but is less successful with her exploitative lover and disappears during the Gulf War; promiscuous, barhopping Caridad—mutilated and left for dead—makes a miraculous recovery, but her life on earth will still be cut short by passion; and the seemingly self-controlled Fe is so efficient that ``even when she lost her mind [upon being jilted]...she did it without a second's hesitation.'' Sofi's life-solution is to found an organization M.O.M.A.S. (Mothers of Martyrs and Saints), while Castillo tries to solve the question of minority-writer aesthetics: Should a work of literature provide a mirror for marginalized identity? Should it celebrate and preserve threatened culture? Should it be politically progressive? Should the writer aim for art, social improvement, or simple entertainment? Castillo tries to do it all—and for the most part succeeds. Storytelling skills and humor allow Castillo to integrate essaylike folklore sections (herbal curing, saint carving, cooking)—while political material (community organizing, toxic chemicals, feminism, the Gulf War) is delivered with unabashed directness and usually disarming charm.
Pub Date: April 17, 1993
ISBN: 0-393-03490-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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