existentially gooey mess.
Coupland's pop-culture flourishes are intact (the title comes from a song by the '80s group the Smiths). However, Coma is hampered by many of its own plot and character devices, which fail to match the emotional gravity the author hopes to convey in this cautionary tale. (ReganBooks, $24)
by Louise Erdrich
If Kevin Costner can dance with wolves and Clarissa P. Estes can run with them, then acclaimed novelist Louise Erdrich can certainly ask us to believe there's a spiritual bond between humans and the swift, graceful antelope—a bond that is at the heart of this beguiling family saga.
Rooted in Native American myth, the tale is set in contemporary Minneapolis. As Erdrich tells it, the ancient links between several generations of the Roy, Whiteheart Beads and Shawano families began with an act of sacrifice (or was it suicide?) by an Ojibwa woman who died saying only daashkikaa, which means "cracked apart." Who was she? What did she mean? Using multiple narrators (including a shrewd dog called Almost Soup) and a plot that shifts between past and present, mythic and real, Erdrich connects the erotically charged but emotionally strained relationship between Indian trader Klaus Shawano and his silent, part-antelope wife to more intricate patterns of Native American identity and destiny. The Antelope Wife is a captivating jigsaw puzzle of longing and loss whose pieces form an unforgettable image of contemporary Native American life. (HarperFlamingo, $24)
by Fauziya Kassindja and Layli Miller Bashir
In this compelling memoir, Fauziya Kassindja recounts her journey from favorite daughter of a wealthy West African businessman to prisoner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services, all before her 20th birthday.
In 1994, after seeking asylum in the U.S. to escape female genital mutilation, a traditional ritual in her society, Kassindja wound up instead in a 16-month-long Kafkaesque nightmare: caught in an Elizabeth, N.J., detention-center riot, put in a prison cell with a murderer, forced into solitary confinement for 19 days after a misdiagnosis of TB. Meanwhile her eyesight was failing, and she developed a peptic ulcer that went untreated until her release. Fortunately for Kassindja, her plight—and the prospect of her deportation back to an arranged marriage in Togo—caught the attention of a handful of law students, legal scholars and advocates. Their dedication and ability to generate nationwide publicity helped Kassindja win her case, which in 1996 set a precedent for women seeking asylum on grounds of gender-based persecution.
Layli Miller Bashir—a second-year law student when she got involved in the case in 1995—was a dedicated member of Kassindja's legal team, but she was less helpful as a cowriter; the many repetitions and unnecessary details are irritating. But whether you slog through or skim, it's hard not to be charmed by Kassindja and moved by her story. (Delacorte, $24.95)
by Catherine Cookson
If the Fairbrothers, the dysfunctional family at the center of Catherine Cookson's latest romance, were not living in turn-of-the-century England, they would be prime candidates for Jerry Springer's show. As patriarch Samuel, a hardworking but loudmouthed shoe magnate (and the upstart of the title), tries to move his working-class clan up the social ladder by purchasing a 34-room mansion in the country, the family confronts adultery, unwed pregnancy, divorce, even suicide—not to mention the haughty disdain of the local gentry.
Helping the family cope is the Fair-brothers' oh-so-proper butler Roger Maitland, who tolerates Samuel's bumptiousness largely because of his own affection for his master's oldest daughter, the wise-beyond-her-years Janet. And of course, Janet—much to her social-climbing father's dismay—secretly adores Roger in return.
With scores of internationally popular historical novels to her name, among them The Golden Straw and The Maltese Angel, the 91-year-old Cookson sketches a vivid picture of rural English life in the early 1900s. Her prose can be overwrought, and some of her supporting characters aren't fully drawn. But the soapy romance between Janet and Roger is tough to resist. (Simon & Schuster, $23)
by Scott Spencer
The author of Endless Love is back and writing about what he knows best: obsession. This time the fictional narrator is Billy Rothschild, a substitute teacher consumed by the need to settle accounts with a father who denies any biological connection, let alone an emotional one. Complicating matters is the fact that the absentee dad is Luke Fairchild, an aging, pampered megastar who may remind you of Bob Dylan. Billy's mother is a minor star simply for being the subject of Luke's love ballads. "Luke made people brave," she says. "He wrote our songs." (Even being an unclaimed offspring has advantages: "Announcing that I was Luke's son opened doors," says Billy. Especially women's doors.)
Bent on learning about his father, Billy spends three years gathering information about the legendary bard's life. Along the way, Spencer convincingly evokes Luke's road to fame and a life scarred by celebrity and bad-boy habits. In the end, Billy gets what he seeks, but at a steep price. Readers, in turn, get a tale of over-the-top intensity that enthralls to the end but strangely leaves little lasting impression. (Knopf, $23)
by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Page-Turner of the Week
"SAVE OUR LADY OF THE TEARS," READS the message a crafty hacker has left on the Pope's computer. The Vatican is not amused. Father Lorenzo Quart, a prelate and investigator who helps maintain the security of the Holy See, including the Pope, is dispatched to unmask the hacker and report on the church in question. The crumbling edifice in the ancient and romantic heart of Seville, Spain, is slated for demolition, and two of its staunch defenders have been killed in mysterious circumstances. Quart is soon confronted with a tangle of possible miscreants—including an obstinate parish priest, an avaricious banker, a seductive Castilian aristocrat and a hapless trio of alcoholic con artists.
With a vivid eye for place and personality, and an ability to provoke deeper questions than most whodunit scribes, Perez-Reverte, a former TV journalist and Spain's bestselling author, weaves an indelible tale of love, faith and greed that will keep readers shouting !ole! (Harcourt Brace, $24)
>National Poetry Month
April was once the cruelest month (to T.S. Eliot, at least), but since 1996 it has been the coolest month—for those toasting the worldwide vitality of poetry today. Here's some verse worth celebrating this season:
DESIRE by Frank Bidart Cementing his reputation as a poet of astonishing originality, Bidart revisits classical encounters—the aftermath of a battle described by Tacitus, an incestuous romance in Ovid—and fashions them into a poetic idiom uniquely his own. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $20)
POEMS NEW AND COLLECTED, 1957-1997 by Wislawa Szymborska The 1996 Nobel Prize committee did us a noble service by singling out this Polish poet of irony, pathos and hard-fought joy. Szymborska tantalizes us with her promise of a "revised, improved edition" of the world, in whose pages "time's unbounded power" cannot "tear/lovers apart." Translators Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh do their usual fine job. (Harcourt Brace, $27)
THE ERRANCY by jorie Graham Possibly the most widely imitated poet in graduate-level writing programs nationwide, Graham renews our awe for her intellectual intensity and stylistic pyrotechnics. (Ecco, $22)
THIEVES OF PARADISE by Yusef Komunyakaa The highlight of this Pulitzer Prize winner's latest is a brilliant suite of 14 poems about jazz great Charlie Parker. Read it with Bird's "Scrapple from the Apple" playing in the background. (Wesleyan, 19.95)
WAKEFULNESS by John Ashbery In a marvelous cento (a work composed entirely of lines from other works), America's top bard casually makes the point that all poetry is—in Wordsworth's line—"Continuous as the stars that shine." (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $20)
- Contributors:
- Anthony Dugnan-Cabrera,
- V.R. Peterson,
- Deborah J. Waldman,
- J.D. Reed,
- Cynthia Sanz,
- Jill Smolowe,
- David Lehman.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
