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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1990)
)u#t out ▼ No x n W 1990 ▼ 2 9 tertainment WE MAKE IT EASIER! 1» Gaudi Afternoon filled _____________________________________ AUTOMOTIVE M FM R FP ly ic iY iu t n S I« v lC E a s s o c ia t io n PRECISION COLLISION REPAIR UNIBODY SPECIALISTS FRAME STRAIGHTENING TOWING ARRANGED QUALITY WORK AT A FAIR PRICE with m ysteries of gender Sketchy characters inhabit Barcelona cityscape in Barbara Wilson*s new comic novel 2454 E. Burnside VISA* 232-3600 Family owned and operated since 1952 Gaudi Afternoon by Barbara Wilson. Seattle: The Seal Press, 1990.172 pages. S8.95. n Barbara Wilson’s new novel, Gaudi Afternoon, the question dogging the female sleuth is not so much who-done-it as who-is-s/he. ★ I ★ From The Magic of Oregon ... Nearly all the characters in this comic mystery belie their appearances. Women are mis taken for sehors\ the men cross-dress; the protagonist dreams of hermaphrodites; one of the mothers used to be a father. Cassandra Reilly, the book’s protagonist, must read the mixed signals of gender in order to grasp the characters’ motives and solve the puzzle. this century. These Gaudi structures, Afternoon is set in Barcelona, in and among buildings designed by architect Antonio Gaudi stone in the early of modem and part fantas tical, provide a pal pable setting for a book in which no one turns out quite as she or he seems. ANNDEE H OC H MA N Wilson, author of three mysteries featuring feminist sleuth Pam Nilsen, as well as Cows and Horses and M iss Venezuela, debuts a new hero ine in this novel. Cassandra Reilly, a globe-wan dering, wise-cracking lapsed Catholic, earns her living translating Spanish, chiefly South Ameri can novels. At the novel’s opening, Reilly is working on the translation of a Venezuelan novel in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Wilson weaves pas sages of this imagined book through the story of Gaudi Afternoon, and her parody of the magic- realism style is both subtle and deft. one hums along, delivering snippets of architec Reilly’s translation project is interrupted by a tural description without slowing the jaunty plot. call from flam boyant Frankie Stevens, who Yet the book lacks the pulse-pounding suspense wants to locate her husband, Ben. She believes of a true thriller, and Wilson doesn’t pursue the he’s somewhere in Barcelona. What sounds like underlying ideas far enough to make them the novel’s true substance. a straightforward sleuthing mission soon grows The final impression is of a mystery/comic into a structure as complicated as a Gaudi blue fabric draped over the framework of a serious print. Reilly, who earns her keep discerning mean discussion about gender, motherhood and the politics of sex-roles. Wilson makes her conclu ings, is momentarily stumped as the trail to Ben sion clear in a revelation that Reilly has during a leads her to a New Age lesbian foot therapist drunken moment in a bar: named April, April’s body-building lover, a six- Afterwards I could never say what it was I year-old girl and a saxophone-playing ex-New experienced ju st then. But it was as if I were at Yorker whose connection to the others remains a m asquerade ball and everyone, at the very mysterious. same moment, lifted their masks, and I saw gen With each turn of the spiralling plot, Reilly’s der fo r what it was, som ething that stood be detective work brings her into more unreadable tween us and our true selves. Something that we territory, where the signifiers of gender turn slip could take o ff and put on at will. Something that pery and the characters’ motives blur. was, strangely, like a game. Wilson’s writing is crisp, the dialogue often Because the characters, despite their compli funny and the characterizations sharp in the cations of gender, ultimately seem like types manner o f an excellent pen-and-ink drawing, rather than people, Reilly’s vision seems more with singular traits skillfully rendered. Yet they grandiose than true, something like the passages somehow fail to take shape as fully dimensional in the book she’s translating. people who command our empathy. But she is a promising protagonist, with her In fact, the most interesting characters are not ironic wit and globe-scouring lifestyle. This book those involved directly in the mystery, but two of marks her debut as a detective; perhaps readers Reilly’s friends in Barcelona, a woman who de can look forward to future mysteries in which signs fantastical playhouses for children and both character and ideas can flourish in a land craves a baby of her own, and a hair stylist who scape as rich as the Barcelona of Gaudi A fter provides Reilly with after-hours adventures. noon. Wilson knows how to tell a story, and this S-T-i-R-S r AN Oregon's gay and lesbian newsmagazine M A L L 50 exciting dealers under one roof ... 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