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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 2000)
3 g J ks X m m *. * January 7. 2000 C IN EM A 21 616NW21” 223-4515 “...best recalls the mood of r E li Curl up with a good book ‘My Life As A Dog? Tom Bliss, IN LOS ANGELES SHOW ilLW E STRAND RELEASING p r e s e n ts A FILM BY l u k a s MOODYSSON n C ontinued from P age 3 7 E n rn x n SERVING ftmTfnre ONE WEEK ONLY: J A N U A R Y 2 1 -2 7 BREAKFAST w w w s tra n d re l.c o m Seven Days a Week From 7:00am to 11:30am Out magazine remarked that Mootoo “employs myth and magic reminiscent of Isabel Allende,” and I would only add that Mootoo embellishes Allende’s style with some very queer twists. Part mystery, part love story, Cereus Blooms at Night explores gender, sexuali ty, identity and post-colonialism without a trace of didacticism, hut with a great deal of tender and exquisite beauty. — Catherine Sameh S even M oves Indie of In Jimenez NEXT MAGAZINE I |/£f(N 0)Y S c H oqi 1 ^ L o WcHenamins 5 7 5 6 NE 33rd P ortlan d, O regon (5 0 5 )2 4 9 -3 9 8 3 »vfvw .m cm enanuns.coni Strand Releasing piesentt a film by Ana Kokkinos mm w 1 ÜJLfJUU N e L é T$T86 VV FIVE DAYS ONLY: JAN. 28-FEB. 1 N O O N E U N D E R 18 A D M IT T E D we need you to get Cascade AIDS Project Prevention Programs are currently recruiting volunteers for the following: Mirirparlr call Dave at 223-5907 ext 218 Hotline: call Tom at 223-5907 ext 214 Speak to Your Brothers: call Sam at 223-5907 ext 233 By Carol Anshaw. Houghton Mifflin C o ., 1997; $ 11 softcover. he first thing that struck me about Seven Moves by Carol Anshaw is how different it is from the predictable formulas of U-Haul romance gone wrong. This novel is a very introspective tale about our ability to project identities onto other people. When Chris Snow’s lover, Taylor, disap pears one day with only her jeep and camera bag, Chris assumes it’s because of the fight they had over Taylor’s wandering ways. When Tay lor doesn’t return, Chris is led into a mystery and forced to confront the fact that Taylor’s life is largely unknown to her. Anshaw turns a mostly internal journey into an unpredictable ride that holds the read er’s attention and makes the book difficult to put down. What I liked most about this book was not having a clue what would come next and Anshaw’s unusual voice. The author has a unique writing style that is unexpectedly humorous, which makes it easy to get into her characters’ heads and care what happens to them, as demonstrated by the following excerpt: T “My dog does the same thing," Taylor said. "Closes his eyes and puts his face straight into a breeze, for the pure pleasure.” Then she brushed a few knuckles across Chris’s cheek to illustrate the not'terribly'difficult-tO'grasp concept o f "breeze ” Chris fought down a nervous impulse to laugh. All through her coming out in boarding school and at college she had longed for precisely this cheesy sort o f scenario, the sexually preda- tory woman, a vamp o f the old school with a mastery o f situation and technique. Someone who knew all the ropes, w ho’d brought the ropes along. Now, so many years and so many women down the line, this kind o f thing seems purely comic. This is a good book for a day when you can hibernate in your flannel jammies with some good snacks by your side. — Kronda Adair T ea By Stacy D'Erasmo. Algonquin Books o f Chapel Hill, 2000; $21.95 hardcover. Cascade AIDS n accomplished first novel by Stacey D’Erasmo, the former senior editor for the Voice Literary Supplement, Tea is the story of Isabel Gold, whose youth in the suburbs of Philadelphia is unsettled by her mother’s sui- A cide. But Isabel is a survivor, and her adventur- ous spirit leads her to the city’s theater world and into the arms of Rebecca, an older lesbian feminist activist. Through Rebecca, and their mutual involvement in theater, Isabel begins to come into her own lesbian womanhood and creativity, setting her sights on New York, film making and further romantic escapades. D’Erasmo fills the story with great tender ness and imagination— every birthday after her mother’s death, Isabel imagines what her moth er might have given her— and wrestles with the complexity of family life, suicide and the growing pains of becoming an adult. Provoca tive, lyrical and erotic, Tea is a triumph. — CS T he H ours By M ichael Cunningham. Picador U SA, 2000; $13 softcover. fU ! K, so the author is a gay man— but he’s trapped in a lesbian and feminist body! The 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner for fic tion, The Hours draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of two modem American women who are trying to make rewarding lives for themselves in spite of all the daily demands they face. Living in present-day Greenwich Village, lesbian book editor Clarissa Vaughan is plan ning a party for her ailing friend, Richard. Laura Brown is a housewife in postwar Califor nia, raising a son and questioning the confines of her marriage. W ith ease and beauty, Cun ningham makes the two women’s lives con verge with Virginia W oolf’s in a surprising and wrenching way during the party for Richard. Sex, sexuality, literature, the meaning of life, of a day, of an hour, all fall under the thought ful treatment of a gifted and sensitive writer. If you read any hook this year, read The Hours. — CS ■ KRONDA A dair is a new reviewer and on staff at In O ther Words W om en’s Books and Resources.
