Five Fortunes
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! You have been warned!
Feeling a strange sense of deja lu halfway through, I think I've read this before.
Remarkable experiences in the following year of five women who meet at a detox spa/fat farm, mainly around the grieving widow, Laurie, stepping into her husband's campaign for senator against a powerful incumbent.
I asked for recommendations similar to Kaye Gibbons once and Secretariat recommended this author. I can see the similarity in the focus on women characters, but these people are so serious and unclever. The story is steeped in white privilege. Even the character who must have her fee at the resort explained away as a gift because she works as a private investigator has a cleaning lady.
The people of color in this novel are used for just that, color. Carter's cleaning lady is from El Salvador, even though we never even see her. Rae's live-ins are a Chinese couple. Carter's client are the members of a black church seeking help with the drug dealers in their neighborhood (the Hispanic couple who own the bodega and the Korean who runs a grocery store also show up to the meeting). Jill has a black man stalking her after volunteering at a soup kitchen. Disturbingly stereotypical? No, the stalker isn't a rapist but a guardian angel who protects her from a real rapist (race not defined). Jill's dad is so grateful, he calls a friend who can pull strings to get the hero his ideal job - as a doorman.
It's so nice to see these white folks being so nice to the little people around them. Rae adopts one of the Chinese couple so they will no longer be illegal aliens. Carter takes unofficial custody of the toddler of her church contact after the woman is murdered (she wasn't on Child Protection's radar, so the baby can just disappear and nobody would care) and vows to track down the woman's drug-addict prostitute sister. Luckily, the sister has been through rehab by the time she shows up again, so Carter reluctantly relinquishes the baby and gives the aunt a job!
It's hard to root for the candidate to displace the out-of-touch, racist, sexist incumbent when she and her friends are so obliviously patronizing themselves.
Oh, and the respresentation of email and instant messaging is a hoot! Had to check, this was published in 1998.
Feeling a strange sense of deja lu halfway through, I think I've read this before.
Remarkable experiences in the following year of five women who meet at a detox spa/fat farm, mainly around the grieving widow, Laurie, stepping into her husband's campaign for senator against a powerful incumbent.
I asked for recommendations similar to Kaye Gibbons once and Secretariat recommended this author. I can see the similarity in the focus on women characters, but these people are so serious and unclever. The story is steeped in white privilege. Even the character who must have her fee at the resort explained away as a gift because she works as a private investigator has a cleaning lady.
The people of color in this novel are used for just that, color. Carter's cleaning lady is from El Salvador, even though we never even see her. Rae's live-ins are a Chinese couple. Carter's client are the members of a black church seeking help with the drug dealers in their neighborhood (the Hispanic couple who own the bodega and the Korean who runs a grocery store also show up to the meeting). Jill has a black man stalking her after volunteering at a soup kitchen. Disturbingly stereotypical? No, the stalker isn't a rapist but a guardian angel who protects her from a real rapist (race not defined). Jill's dad is so grateful, he calls a friend who can pull strings to get the hero his ideal job - as a doorman.
It's so nice to see these white folks being so nice to the little people around them. Rae adopts one of the Chinese couple so they will no longer be illegal aliens. Carter takes unofficial custody of the toddler of her church contact after the woman is murdered (she wasn't on Child Protection's radar, so the baby can just disappear and nobody would care) and vows to track down the woman's drug-addict prostitute sister. Luckily, the sister has been through rehab by the time she shows up again, so Carter reluctantly relinquishes the baby and gives the aunt a job!
It's hard to root for the candidate to displace the out-of-touch, racist, sexist incumbent when she and her friends are so obliviously patronizing themselves.
Oh, and the respresentation of email and instant messaging is a hoot! Had to check, this was published in 1998.
Journal Entry 3 by 
ghir
at Hawaii Book & Music Festival in -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, Hawaii USA on Saturday, May 18, 2013
ghir at Hawaii Book & Music Festival in -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, Hawaii USA on Saturday, May 18, 2013
Released 10 yrs ago (5/18/2013 UTC) at Hawaii Book & Music Festival in -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, Hawaii USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
May be at Sky Gate or at the BOH Swap Tent.
This book is registered at BookCrossing.com to track its journey through this world. You can make a journal entry (anonymously, if you like) to say you found it, then read it and/or pass it on for someone else to enjoy. Thank you!
This book is registered at BookCrossing.com to track its journey through this world. You can make a journal entry (anonymously, if you like) to say you found it, then read it and/or pass it on for someone else to enjoy. Thank you!
