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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
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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.