Playwright/novelist Swados (The Myth Man, 1994, etc.) sends an Orthodox Jewish woman to teach English in a school for gay teenagers. Chana Landau appears ill-equipped to deal with the teen prostitutes and cross-dressers at Manhattan’s Harvey Milk High. Her sheltered family home doesn’t even contain a television,and she’s working to build up a dowry for her impending marriage to the also-devout Avi Wiseman. (Appalled but intrigued by the unbuttoned atmosphere at Harvey Milk, she keeps the details of her new job from her father and fiancÇ.) But Chana’s tougher than she seems: her ability to maintain ethnic and spiritual integrity when dealing with kids intent on humiliating her through sexual innuendo attracts the interest of 15-year-old Flamboy†nt, allegedly half-Jewish and definitely a good student when she can spare time from taking drugs and turning tricks on the West Side Highway. She and Chana form a relationship that has moments of genuine tenderness, though Swados unsentimentally delineates its roots in Flamboy†nt’s lies and Chana’s patronizing good intentions. The big revelation scene (think The Crying Game) is not exactly a stunning surprise, nor is Avi’s apple-cart—upsetting visit to Harvey Milk, which prompts the predictable plot developments of the novel’s second half. Swados is a capable writer, good at capturing the gaudy, wounded voices of Flamboy†nt and her friends. The depiction of conflict between Chana’s religious beliefs and her fondness for Harvey Milk’s errant teens, however, is much less convincing; the author doesn’t convey any great understanding of or sympathy for Orthodox Judaism, and an amusingly sexy portrait of virginal lust between Chana and Avi can’t make up for the lack of a real moral alternative to the desperate nihilism of Flamboy†nt’s world. Nonetheless, smart observations and sharp character sketches make this worthwhile for serious fiction readers willing to tolerate some fundamental flaws. Problematic, but always pungent and at times penetrating. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-19547-8
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
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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