The decision in question? I do like Tom Perrotta. I had found his previous books to be uneven at best. While I had absoultely loved Little Children, Joe College didn't do much of anything for me.
His newest book, The Abstinence Teacher, was terrific. It's smart and funny, and a good critique of the evangelistic movement without being too judgemental or preachy. The central figures in the book are both abstaining from sex, although neither really by choice. Ruth is the Abstinence Teacher in question, and has been divorced (and celibate) for two years. She landed in hot water with the administration after a student baited her about oral sex in class and she was amoral enough to admit that "some people like it." The student was a member of an evangelical church in town and used the comment to cause a huge uproar, resulting in the institution of an abstinence-only sex-ed "curriculum."
Tim is not actually her adversary in all of this, but represents another side of the story. He is, himself, a member of this evangelical church. He's also a former addict who struggles daily with the desire to drink and do drugs again. He misses the wild times, the women, the rock bands he used to play in, the card games, all that stuff. He also misses his ex-wife, who's moved on, and their daughter, who he only gets to see once a week. He married a younger Christian woman who doesn't turn him on the way his ex-wife used to, causing real problems throughout the relationship. A bright spot in his life is coaching his daughter's soccer team. Ruth's daughter plays for the same team, and their lives collide when Ruth catches him leading the girls in prayer after a particularly emotional game.
Unlike the other three Perrotta books I read, this one ends on a hopeful note. There's plenty of sorrow throughout the book: Ruth's palpable loneliness, Tim's feeling of being lost, the pain he causes others, the life that's slipping away from Ruth. There's also some very funny moments. I particularly liked the part where Ruth got sent for a "refresher" in the Wise Choices For Teens program. I definitely recommend this one, especially if you feel the way I do about things like abstinence-only "education" (seriously, remember how well the "Just Say No" campaign worked for drug addiction? see how no one does drugs anymore?) and the way the Christian Right has taken over this country. Get it if you can: it took me several tries at Central before I found it in.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Unluckiest Man in Upstate New York
The last time I went to the library, I was on a nonfiction tear. After the haul of lackluster novels, I thought I'd try some nonfiction. Then I didn't. I got about a quarter of the way into a book on the Black Dahlia murder and never picked it back up, or any of the other books. While my library sends me increasingly angry emails ("Please return the following at once!") I've been reading an old favorite, Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo.
I first read this book in graduate school and have since come to believe that I've located all of the inspirations in Upstate New York for the fictional upstate New York town of Bath, where this book is set. The geographic location of it -- about a half hour north of Albany near the Northway, in proximity to a wealthier town -- would put it where Ballston Spa is located, its wealthy, tourist-destination sister city being Saratoga Springs. Yet, I think the idea of the economically depressed former tourist magnate came from the haunting town of Sharon Springs further west, with its large, palatial, abandoned mineral bath hotels (I also think some of the inspiration for Disney's Tower of Terror came from here, too). Finally, I think the inspiration for the subplot about the proposed amuseument park came from the expansion and rebranding of the Great Escape in Lake George.
Knowing all of these places fairly well makes me feel an intimate connection with the story, but Russo's characters are so terrific that you can't help but feel that anyway. He has a knack for making them feel both ordinary and extraordinary. They're not "colorful" in a manufactured way, but they seem like real people with complexities, eccentricities, pasts, hopes and dreams. This is a holiday story, starting on the day before Thanksgiving and wrapping up around New Year's. It chronicles the life of Sully -- Don Sullivan, mid-50s, long-divorced, in a long-term affair, renting a flat from his eighth-grade English teacher and working under the table for a local construction magnate and tomcat.
Sully is, at heart, a lone wolf, who's drifted through life largely without strings. That's his own position, and the surface evidence seems to support it. He owns nothing but a beat-up pickup truck. He has no profession. He's been having an affair with the same woman for twenty years, but she's not really his. He has a son from his marriage, but he's not close to him. Yet, the more you read, the more you see how connected he is to everyone in town, and even to the poeple in his own life. By the end of the book, he begins to see this too. You also get glimpses into his past that explain his aggressive avoidance of ties.
This is really Sully's story, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other principal in this story. Sully's landlady, Miss Beryl, was Jessica Tandy's last role in the film version and a moving character in the book. She's probably in her late eighties, and few fiction writers seem to want to take on writing from the point of view of an elderly character (this book is written from an omniscient point of view). Russo handles it deftly. Miss Beryl struggles with her own mortality and her increasing physical limitations. She struggles with her feelings about her grown son, and whether they represent more of an accurate assessment or are a harbinger of failing faculties. She struggles with her conflicting desires to remain a part of society and her disgust with that same society after having seen a lifetime of it. Empire Falls gets more attention, but this is far and away my favorite Richard Russo book.
I first read this book in graduate school and have since come to believe that I've located all of the inspirations in Upstate New York for the fictional upstate New York town of Bath, where this book is set. The geographic location of it -- about a half hour north of Albany near the Northway, in proximity to a wealthier town -- would put it where Ballston Spa is located, its wealthy, tourist-destination sister city being Saratoga Springs. Yet, I think the idea of the economically depressed former tourist magnate came from the haunting town of Sharon Springs further west, with its large, palatial, abandoned mineral bath hotels (I also think some of the inspiration for Disney's Tower of Terror came from here, too). Finally, I think the inspiration for the subplot about the proposed amuseument park came from the expansion and rebranding of the Great Escape in Lake George.
Knowing all of these places fairly well makes me feel an intimate connection with the story, but Russo's characters are so terrific that you can't help but feel that anyway. He has a knack for making them feel both ordinary and extraordinary. They're not "colorful" in a manufactured way, but they seem like real people with complexities, eccentricities, pasts, hopes and dreams. This is a holiday story, starting on the day before Thanksgiving and wrapping up around New Year's. It chronicles the life of Sully -- Don Sullivan, mid-50s, long-divorced, in a long-term affair, renting a flat from his eighth-grade English teacher and working under the table for a local construction magnate and tomcat.
Sully is, at heart, a lone wolf, who's drifted through life largely without strings. That's his own position, and the surface evidence seems to support it. He owns nothing but a beat-up pickup truck. He has no profession. He's been having an affair with the same woman for twenty years, but she's not really his. He has a son from his marriage, but he's not close to him. Yet, the more you read, the more you see how connected he is to everyone in town, and even to the poeple in his own life. By the end of the book, he begins to see this too. You also get glimpses into his past that explain his aggressive avoidance of ties.
This is really Sully's story, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other principal in this story. Sully's landlady, Miss Beryl, was Jessica Tandy's last role in the film version and a moving character in the book. She's probably in her late eighties, and few fiction writers seem to want to take on writing from the point of view of an elderly character (this book is written from an omniscient point of view). Russo handles it deftly. Miss Beryl struggles with her own mortality and her increasing physical limitations. She struggles with her feelings about her grown son, and whether they represent more of an accurate assessment or are a harbinger of failing faculties. She struggles with her conflicting desires to remain a part of society and her disgust with that same society after having seen a lifetime of it. Empire Falls gets more attention, but this is far and away my favorite Richard Russo book.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Workin' 9 to 5
Work. It's something we all do, or are forced to endure. Pull up any user-driven site on the web, and you'll find it rife with frustrations (mainly petty) about work. From the notes about people stealing yogurt and staplers on passiveaggressivenotes.com to the often more serious gripes about unethical and even illegal behavior that can be found on the Craigslist job forum, they're everywhere.
I used to frequent the Craigslist JoFo, even when I wasn't looking. I realize that this makes me sound like a total douchebag, but I have a sort of sociological interest in working and people's attitudes towards their jobs and co-workers. Some of my favorite books deal with work. There's Studs Terkel's fascinating and fabulous Working (all the more interesting for being over 30 years old and containing interviews with many people whose occupations no longer exist or have changed beyond all recognition). There's the "memoir of a moran" The Working Stiff's Manifesto by Iain Levinson, which is still entertaining despite his refusal to learn. Add to these the novel by Joshua Ferris, And Then We Came To The End.
This book is set in a failing Chicago advertising agency during the late nineties and the first part of this decade. It's about office politics and intrigues in the face of layoffs and impending insolvency. The author uses an interesting device: he writes in the first person plural. We do this, we think that. The book contains an interview with him, in which he explains that his inspiration from this was derived from the new "corporate we." I can relate to that: I've often responded to emails from potential volunteers and talked about how excited "we" were to hear of their interest in "our" organization, and "we" would love their help, and "we" look forward to meeting them. And I think, what the fuck, do I have a mouse in my pocket? Number One, I'm the only who even knows of this person's interest, and number two, I can't honestly think of one co-worker who also may give a shit about it. But I continue to do it.
The "we" also gets at the peculiar group-think that often occurs in offices. At one point in the novel, all of the "core group" in the office becomes convinced that their boss has breast cancer, despite the total lack of evidence. They even spend an entire workday trying unsuccessfully to source the rumor. Yet, they are so convinced that one of them confronts her. It's an effective, well-done device. The only other instance I can think of where such a thing worked so well was in Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City which was written in the second person: You do this, you do that. But that's a post for another day.
The book is funny, but gets at a lot of truths about the modern work environment. The petty power struggles. The ridiculous rules and mores, the little attempts to rebel at them, and the consequences of them. This book has received a lot of critical acclaim, and I agree that it's worth checking out.
I used to frequent the Craigslist JoFo, even when I wasn't looking. I realize that this makes me sound like a total douchebag, but I have a sort of sociological interest in working and people's attitudes towards their jobs and co-workers. Some of my favorite books deal with work. There's Studs Terkel's fascinating and fabulous Working (all the more interesting for being over 30 years old and containing interviews with many people whose occupations no longer exist or have changed beyond all recognition). There's the "memoir of a moran" The Working Stiff's Manifesto by Iain Levinson, which is still entertaining despite his refusal to learn. Add to these the novel by Joshua Ferris, And Then We Came To The End.
This book is set in a failing Chicago advertising agency during the late nineties and the first part of this decade. It's about office politics and intrigues in the face of layoffs and impending insolvency. The author uses an interesting device: he writes in the first person plural. We do this, we think that. The book contains an interview with him, in which he explains that his inspiration from this was derived from the new "corporate we." I can relate to that: I've often responded to emails from potential volunteers and talked about how excited "we" were to hear of their interest in "our" organization, and "we" would love their help, and "we" look forward to meeting them. And I think, what the fuck, do I have a mouse in my pocket? Number One, I'm the only who even knows of this person's interest, and number two, I can't honestly think of one co-worker who also may give a shit about it. But I continue to do it.
The "we" also gets at the peculiar group-think that often occurs in offices. At one point in the novel, all of the "core group" in the office becomes convinced that their boss has breast cancer, despite the total lack of evidence. They even spend an entire workday trying unsuccessfully to source the rumor. Yet, they are so convinced that one of them confronts her. It's an effective, well-done device. The only other instance I can think of where such a thing worked so well was in Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City which was written in the second person: You do this, you do that. But that's a post for another day.
The book is funny, but gets at a lot of truths about the modern work environment. The petty power struggles. The ridiculous rules and mores, the little attempts to rebel at them, and the consequences of them. This book has received a lot of critical acclaim, and I agree that it's worth checking out.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Death Takes a Holiday. Library Diva Takes a Holiday. Results below.
OK, so I didn't REALLY take a holiday. I've been right here, working six-day weeks and late nights trying to get the new exhibits up and devoting most of my spare time to doing laundry, paying bills and playing World of Warcraft (level 55 now, bitches!!!). But somewhere in there, I found some time to visit my favorite library and pick some stuff up. I'd heard good things about Christopher Moore, so I got A Dirty Job.
I finished it late last night without ever really connecting to it. File this under "It's not you, it's me:" when you read half a chapter a day, right before bed or while you're standing at Office Max AGAIN waiting for them to finish your large format copies because your wranglings with the large format printer that everyone insists actually works continue to be unsuccessful, it doesn't really make for a comprehensive reading experience. I'm starting to understand why many smart executives go for such trashy books: it's because they're easy. Who knows, amybe that explains the proliferation of reality TV, too: it's for people who've been thinking all day and just want to relax, dammit. But anyway, I digress.
A Dirty Job is the tale of Charlie Asher, a regular joe who runs a secondhand shop. He loses his wife to childbirth, but right before she dies, he catches someone in her hospital room stealing a CD he'd brought her. Turns out, that person was a Death Merchant, who picks up soul vessels from those who are dying or recently deceased, and makes sure they get into the right hands. And now Charlie's one too. You can learn all this from reading the dust jacket, so I didn't really give away much of anything, but I have to say that the exposition on all of this was a little too long. For about sixty pages, Charlie couldn't figure out why all the stuff in his shop was glowing, why people kept bringing him things and then dropping dead the next day, why none of the pets he bought his baby daughter survived, and you're yelling all along: IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE DEATH! This probably wasn't Moore's fault: he had no idea how this novel would be marketed when he wrote it, after all, and probably very little control over the decision.
Premise fiction is hard to get right. At times, the premise here overwhelmed the story. But overall, it wasn't bad. There is a lot of humor in the book, for being all about death and all. There's a lot of outright goofiness too: his daughter has the ability to kill with a word, that word of choice being "kitty"; a fellow Death Merchant is a seven-foot tall black dude named Minty Fresh; stuff like that. Like I said, I was kinda "meh" about the book. I know there are a lot of real Christopher Moore fans out there and I can see why, but I have no strong feelings one way or the other after reading this. I would try another, but wouldn't rush to do so.
I finished it late last night without ever really connecting to it. File this under "It's not you, it's me:" when you read half a chapter a day, right before bed or while you're standing at Office Max AGAIN waiting for them to finish your large format copies because your wranglings with the large format printer that everyone insists actually works continue to be unsuccessful, it doesn't really make for a comprehensive reading experience. I'm starting to understand why many smart executives go for such trashy books: it's because they're easy. Who knows, amybe that explains the proliferation of reality TV, too: it's for people who've been thinking all day and just want to relax, dammit. But anyway, I digress.
A Dirty Job is the tale of Charlie Asher, a regular joe who runs a secondhand shop. He loses his wife to childbirth, but right before she dies, he catches someone in her hospital room stealing a CD he'd brought her. Turns out, that person was a Death Merchant, who picks up soul vessels from those who are dying or recently deceased, and makes sure they get into the right hands. And now Charlie's one too. You can learn all this from reading the dust jacket, so I didn't really give away much of anything, but I have to say that the exposition on all of this was a little too long. For about sixty pages, Charlie couldn't figure out why all the stuff in his shop was glowing, why people kept bringing him things and then dropping dead the next day, why none of the pets he bought his baby daughter survived, and you're yelling all along: IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE DEATH! This probably wasn't Moore's fault: he had no idea how this novel would be marketed when he wrote it, after all, and probably very little control over the decision.
Premise fiction is hard to get right. At times, the premise here overwhelmed the story. But overall, it wasn't bad. There is a lot of humor in the book, for being all about death and all. There's a lot of outright goofiness too: his daughter has the ability to kill with a word, that word of choice being "kitty"; a fellow Death Merchant is a seven-foot tall black dude named Minty Fresh; stuff like that. Like I said, I was kinda "meh" about the book. I know there are a lot of real Christopher Moore fans out there and I can see why, but I have no strong feelings one way or the other after reading this. I would try another, but wouldn't rush to do so.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
The One I Had To Read At Home
The delightful folks at work have already caught me smiling one too many times, so there was no way I was going to bring Jen Lancaster's Bright Lights, Big Ass to work with me. I enjoyed this one before bed, after a hard day, and in the morning with my coffee. I finished it last night.
I really enjoyed Bitter is the New Black, the tale of her fall from grace as a highly paid vice president to nearly getting evicted from a ghetto apartment. This one doesn't follow a neat story arc in the same manner. It's billed as a tale of life in the city, but it's really more about Jen's life. This isn't to say that it's not funny or well-written, just that future historians may be disappointed when this one is uncovered.
The book picks up where Bitter is the New Black left off. Jen has sold her first book, and her husband Fletch is still working at the job that saved them from eviction at the last moment. Beyond that, it's really just a slice of life. Jen temping to help pay the bills, since it turns out that being a writer isn't really a high-paying occupation. Jen wrangling with the dogs. Jen and Fletch shopping at Trader Joe's and entertaining friends.
I like her books a lot. I like her conversational style. I like the way her forceful, contradictory personality comes through. I love her sense of humor (I practically peed my pants during the part where she wrote "asshole" on Fletch's arm in self-tanner and he shaved off one of her eyebrows). I visit her blog a lot and comment sometimes so it almost feels weird to say anything negative about her here, not like she'd ever come here and read it. I don't really have anything negative to say -- I do like her books. But they're very dependent on liking her. If you read Bitter is the New Black and thought she was annoying, stay away from this one. If you read it and thought she was hilarious, check out Bright Lights, Big Ass. Just maybe not in the lunch room at work.
I really enjoyed Bitter is the New Black, the tale of her fall from grace as a highly paid vice president to nearly getting evicted from a ghetto apartment. This one doesn't follow a neat story arc in the same manner. It's billed as a tale of life in the city, but it's really more about Jen's life. This isn't to say that it's not funny or well-written, just that future historians may be disappointed when this one is uncovered.
The book picks up where Bitter is the New Black left off. Jen has sold her first book, and her husband Fletch is still working at the job that saved them from eviction at the last moment. Beyond that, it's really just a slice of life. Jen temping to help pay the bills, since it turns out that being a writer isn't really a high-paying occupation. Jen wrangling with the dogs. Jen and Fletch shopping at Trader Joe's and entertaining friends.
I like her books a lot. I like her conversational style. I like the way her forceful, contradictory personality comes through. I love her sense of humor (I practically peed my pants during the part where she wrote "asshole" on Fletch's arm in self-tanner and he shaved off one of her eyebrows). I visit her blog a lot and comment sometimes so it almost feels weird to say anything negative about her here, not like she'd ever come here and read it. I don't really have anything negative to say -- I do like her books. But they're very dependent on liking her. If you read Bitter is the New Black and thought she was annoying, stay away from this one. If you read it and thought she was hilarious, check out Bright Lights, Big Ass. Just maybe not in the lunch room at work.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A unique tribute to Anthony Minghella
I'm sure that by now, I'm not delivering the news of director Anthony Minghella's death to anyone. Like everyone else, I was pretty surprised to hear he'd passed, him being relatively young and not associated with any particular health problems or addictions. However, none of the tributes to him that I've read so far mention my favorite work of his: the writing on Jim Henson's "The Storyteller" series.
I haven't met many people who remember this show from their childhood. If I didn't own both a DVD of the entire show (it only lasted 1 season) and the book by Anthony Minghella (a great library booksale find!) I would've doubted its existence. For some reason, this series didn't catch on. But it was absolutely beautiful. It starred John Hurt in the title role, as The Storyteller who would bring you a different folk tale each week. The Jim Henson Studio could create a dog puppet that was more realistic than an actual dog, so they may have been showing off a bit when they gave John Hurt his sarcastic sidekick dog.
I recommend the DVD of it to anyone, for any purpose. Whether you're a parent with young children, or you yourself just like some good escapist fantasy. Each episode has some humor, virtually no realistic violence, and beautiful puppetry. (The thought-lion from "The True Bride" appeared in several of Henson's publicity photos). But although the puppetry was the star, the writing hovered, perfectly unseen, in the background. Minghella was able to hit just the right note: understandable to children, yet not patronizing at all. The companion book was an excellent way to appeal to families who wanted to start their own storytelling tradition. How sad, to watch this DVD now and realize that both of the driving forces behind it are gone from us forever.
I haven't met many people who remember this show from their childhood. If I didn't own both a DVD of the entire show (it only lasted 1 season) and the book by Anthony Minghella (a great library booksale find!) I would've doubted its existence. For some reason, this series didn't catch on. But it was absolutely beautiful. It starred John Hurt in the title role, as The Storyteller who would bring you a different folk tale each week. The Jim Henson Studio could create a dog puppet that was more realistic than an actual dog, so they may have been showing off a bit when they gave John Hurt his sarcastic sidekick dog.
I recommend the DVD of it to anyone, for any purpose. Whether you're a parent with young children, or you yourself just like some good escapist fantasy. Each episode has some humor, virtually no realistic violence, and beautiful puppetry. (The thought-lion from "The True Bride" appeared in several of Henson's publicity photos). But although the puppetry was the star, the writing hovered, perfectly unseen, in the background. Minghella was able to hit just the right note: understandable to children, yet not patronizing at all. The companion book was an excellent way to appeal to families who wanted to start their own storytelling tradition. How sad, to watch this DVD now and realize that both of the driving forces behind it are gone from us forever.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Uncharitable
Reading a book in a few short hours can mean any number of things. It can mean that the book was so damn good, you moved heaven and earth to read it, you stayed up all night, called off sick to work, took a longer lunch than you should have or read it at stoplights on the way home. Or, it can mean that there simply wasn't very much to it. In the case of Charity Girl, by Michael Lowenthal, the latter was true.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my case of paralysis in the face of a $50 gift card, and how this book was the only one that seemed worthy of ownership. I'm contemplating taking the damn thing back, after starting it when I woke up this morning and finishing it before early afternoon.
Charity Girl is a bit of slang that crops up several times in the book without being fully, clearly explained. It's the only real mystery the book has to offer, but from what I could tell, a "charity girl" was a young woman of the early
20th century, usually independent but poor, who hangs around dance halls trying to meet men who will pay her way in. Frieda, the heroine of the novel, is one of these. She has run away from home and an arranged marriage to Boston, where she has a job at Jordan Marsh. She lives on little but hope, renting a single room, eating once a day and living for nights at the dance hall with her best friend. But never going all the way with any of her patrons, until she meets the "special" soldier who gives her VD.
From there, her life spirals out of control. She gets a visit from some sort of official woman at work, loses her job, then starts to get really sick. She tries to find her soldier to ask him for help, but instead gets arrested and detained in a special house for girls who've been infecting the soldiers with their VD and loose morals.
Historical fiction is hard to get just right. It's easy to overlook the fact that history is lived by people like you and me, who often don't pay a whole lot of attention to it. Would the average uneducated young girl of the times, caught up in such a scenario, be able to identify the larger societal forces that contributed to her misfortune? Would she rail against a system that is sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, stupidly patriotic and classist? Or would she just be more likely to express her situation as being "bullshit"?
In the end, Charity Girl doesn't yield any more in execution than it did in concept. You can learn everything the book has to share by reading its jacket. The characters are flat and archetypal, the plot line is predictable, and the whole thing feels like a simple attempt to fictionalize history, not any sort of organic story. Lowenthal also makes the same grave mistake found at the end of Kevin Baker's Dreamland where he feels the necessity to give you the rest of the character's life at a gallop (except, unlike Baker, he doesn't hedge his bets with too many maybes: "Maybe she died in the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist plant, or maybe she reunited with Sam and moved upstate just in time...") He would've done much better to give you a little hint that Frieda, post-release, wound up being just fine and leading a happy life.
This one was a real disappointment. I was at Barnes and Noble again this weekend, and picked up two new books, so hopefully these will be better.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my case of paralysis in the face of a $50 gift card, and how this book was the only one that seemed worthy of ownership. I'm contemplating taking the damn thing back, after starting it when I woke up this morning and finishing it before early afternoon.
Charity Girl is a bit of slang that crops up several times in the book without being fully, clearly explained. It's the only real mystery the book has to offer, but from what I could tell, a "charity girl" was a young woman of the early
20th century, usually independent but poor, who hangs around dance halls trying to meet men who will pay her way in. Frieda, the heroine of the novel, is one of these. She has run away from home and an arranged marriage to Boston, where she has a job at Jordan Marsh. She lives on little but hope, renting a single room, eating once a day and living for nights at the dance hall with her best friend. But never going all the way with any of her patrons, until she meets the "special" soldier who gives her VD.
From there, her life spirals out of control. She gets a visit from some sort of official woman at work, loses her job, then starts to get really sick. She tries to find her soldier to ask him for help, but instead gets arrested and detained in a special house for girls who've been infecting the soldiers with their VD and loose morals.
Historical fiction is hard to get just right. It's easy to overlook the fact that history is lived by people like you and me, who often don't pay a whole lot of attention to it. Would the average uneducated young girl of the times, caught up in such a scenario, be able to identify the larger societal forces that contributed to her misfortune? Would she rail against a system that is sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, stupidly patriotic and classist? Or would she just be more likely to express her situation as being "bullshit"?
In the end, Charity Girl doesn't yield any more in execution than it did in concept. You can learn everything the book has to share by reading its jacket. The characters are flat and archetypal, the plot line is predictable, and the whole thing feels like a simple attempt to fictionalize history, not any sort of organic story. Lowenthal also makes the same grave mistake found at the end of Kevin Baker's Dreamland where he feels the necessity to give you the rest of the character's life at a gallop (except, unlike Baker, he doesn't hedge his bets with too many maybes: "Maybe she died in the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist plant, or maybe she reunited with Sam and moved upstate just in time...") He would've done much better to give you a little hint that Frieda, post-release, wound up being just fine and leading a happy life.
This one was a real disappointment. I was at Barnes and Noble again this weekend, and picked up two new books, so hopefully these will be better.
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