Fans of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, the acclaimed 1991 novel by Julia Alvarez, will cheer the return of the four Garcia sisters, now all grown up and squabbling with each other (still) in this lively new work of fiction. The Dominican-born author, who wrote so movingly about the immigrant experience in Garcia Girls, turns her attention to Yolanda, or Yo, sister No. 3, who has written a novel about a family's move in the early '60s from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. The other Garcias are plenty mad about her exposing intimate details of their lives, and the most enjoyable parts of this story come as the family tries to deal with the stubborn, often wrong-headed, but ultimately endearing protagonist.
Clearly, Yo is a stand-in for Alvarez, and, to the author's credit, she's not always admirable. What's unfortunate, though, is the book's fractured structure—Alvarez uses multiple narrators (some American) to recount Yo's years in college, her struggles to become a writer and her three marriages. Because of the shifting perspectives, the reader doesn't get a clear enough idea of what makes Yo tick. And the American characters seem oddly flat. Alvarez writes best about the complexities of Dominican family life—territory she knows most intimately. (Algonquin, $18,95)
by Lisa Grunwald
The death of a child has become a standard literary device, but Grunwald uses it to good effect in this drama about a mother who must let go of the past to reclaim the present. Erica is happy to recapture the childhood closeness she had with her twin sister, Heather, after they give birth within weeks of each other. But three years later when Heather's son is killed in a car accident, Erica's daughter Sarah becomes convinced that she can talk to him in heaven. And in her grief, Heather encourages Sarah's fantasy, driving the child away from her mother—as well as reality. Grunwald is especially strong in her portrayal of sibling rivalry and the dark undertow of family history and she spins her story briskly, if not eloquently. Still, it doesn't reach deep. Eve is rather like a New Year's resolution—good while it lasts, but it doesn't stick with you for long. (Crown, $24)
by Laura Banks and Janette Barber
The Rules—that alarming guide to landing husbands through manipulation, deceit and playing hard to get—has already been rightly parodied on Saturday Night Live and in a jokey retort, The Code, written by two single guys. Now comes this satirical trifle—subtitled "Last-ditch Tactics for Landing the Man of Your Dreams"—by two rebel women: Banks, a former stand-up comic, and Barber, a writer for the Rosie O'Donnell Show. Like many other quickie takeoffs on pop cultural phenomena (O.J.'s Legal Pad), this slender volume uses every trick to sneak past 100 pages—large type, lots of white space, blank pages—but still manages to seem too long.
While The Rules advised women to "Rarely Return His Calls" and "Don't Open Up Too Fast," Breaking offers predictable Rules riffs such as "Move Your Stuff into His Apartment As Quickly As Possible" and "Gab Until His Ears Bleed." Neediness needn't scare a man, we're told, since "calling him incessantly will give him the impression that you are complex," while dull dates, it turns out, are a cinch to squirm out of. (Just say, "It's so annoying being a carrier.")
There's a laugh or two to be had, but not nearly enough to justify breaking Rule No. 1 regarding rushed-to-print parodies: Save your money and skim through them in the bookstore. (Career, $7.99)
by Peter Hoeg
When a highly evolved chimpanzee named Erasmus escapes from an animal smuggler and finds refuge in the backyard potting shed of a London zoologist, the scientist's wife, Madelene, finds the renegade monkey to be more of a soulmate—more of a man—than her self-important husband. This new novel from the Danish author of the bestselling Smilla's Sense of Snow, is a witty, compelling thriller that touches a primal nerve that has lain dormant since King Kong fell hard for Fay Wray.
What sort of beast is this prodigiously sensitive chimp? What nefarious research plans do the heartless scientists have in mind for its future? How will Madelene rescue it—and herself—from their evil clutches? As we're asking ourselves these questions and following the plot through its continually surprising turns and leaps, Hoeg keeps our disbelief at bay and manages to direct our attention to larger, more serious matters: the cruelty of animal research, the secret misanthropy of many animal protectionists, the nature of intelligence, of passion, of love—and of the mysterious qualities that define us as human. (Farrar Straus Giroux, $23)
by Tobias Wolff
The stories that are included in Tobias Wolff's new collection—his first in a decade—are as brilliant as cut gemstones.
In the darkly comic opener, "Mortals," a novice newspaper reporter neglects to check the truth of an obituary piece and loses his job when the supposedly departed subject marches in to complain. In "The Other Miller," a young man, who feels abandoned when his mother remarries, joins the Army to punish her, only to learn that she has died suddenly in his absence.
Throughout The Night in Question parents, siblings, strangers and friends brush up against one another in poignant and often absurd scenarios. But Wolff saves his best for last. With "Bullet in the Brain," the collection's finale, we watch as an intellectual snob on line at a bank seals his doom with the snide banter that sends an armed robber over the edge. (Knopf, $23)
edited by Shelley Fishkin
Now there's no excuse for not delving into the tall tales and mordant observations of America's greatest humorist. Samuel Clemens's complete works have been collected in a set of 29 illustrated volumes, introduced by such Twainiacs as Toni Morrison, Roy Blount Jr. and Walter Mosley. The expert editor is University of Texas professor Shelley Fishkin, and it's her conviction that the prolific, irreverent Twain saw the best and worst about America, "our extravagant promise and our stunning failures, our comic foibles and our tragic flaws." (Oxford, $19.95 each)
by Richard North Patterson
Page-Turner of the Week
For celebrated defense attorney Tony Lord the past is all too vividly the present. As a teenager in Lake City, Ohio, he was judged a killer by the townsfolk when his girlfriend was murdered and he was discovered beside her body. No matter that he was never charged with the crime. Now, his childhood pal, 44-year-old Sam Robb, who has become the Lake City High School track coach, stands accused of a similar crime: murdering a teenage girl who was both one of his star atheletes and was pregnant with his child.
He and his wife, Sue, call on Tony to defend him. Patterson, whose best-selling novels include Eyes of a Child and The Final Judgment, weaves intense courtroom drama with compulsive, vivid flashbacks as the real stories of both murders come into grisly focus. Who is innocent? Who is guilty? In the hands of the psychological-thriller master, the answers are not easy—or expected—and the final judgment is as startling as the bang of a gavel. (Knopf, $25.95)
>ONE MORE FOR THE GIFFORD Singer/talk show host/clothier/cruise line pitchwoman and mother of two Kathie Lee Gifford, 43, just signed a five-figure deal with Random House Children's Publishing to pen five kiddie books based on her Rock and Tots videos. What's next, a cabinet post?
DEAN OF DEALS
A high-price free agent jumps ship and signs a juicy contract with a rival team. Shaq? Gretzky? No, bestselling horror novelist Dean Koontz (Intensity). After turning in the final manuscript in a three-book deal with Knopf (Sole Survivor, due next month) the author signed what he called "the best deal I've ever had"—better than his $18½ million Knopf deal—with Bantam, which impressed Koontz with its marketing savvy. "The business of publishing," he reasoned, "is becoming more and more like the business of films." And sports.
ONE L OF A SHOW
Can't get enough of affidavits and orders to show cause? Prepare yourself for One-L, a dramatic series—due on NBC later this year—based on Scott Turow's classic 1975 account of a year at Harvard Law School. "As my wife puts it, it's the legal E.R.," says Turow, the show's executive consultant. "I think the best things on TV are better than most feature films."
BUY GEORGE Bill Clinton wasn't the only big winner in last fall's election. Policy wonk George Stephanopolous, 35, who recently quit as one of Clinton's senior advisers to enlist with NBC as a commentator, now has a deal with Little, Brown to write a personal account of his time in D.C., reportedly for $2.75 million. That's more than 10 times his former boss's annual salary.
- Contributors:
- Clare McHugh,
- Paula Chin,
- Alex Tresniowski,
- Francine Prose,
- Louisa Ermelino,
- Emily Mitchell,
- J.D. Reed,
- Lan N. Nguyen.
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!
