![]() Greer’s boyfriend Cory, whose career falls apart after a family tragedy, and Faith’s benefactor, the fabulously wealthy Emmet Shrader, who is reminiscent of former Steinem paramour Mort Zuckerman, don’t resonate like the women in the book. As befits a work with female in the title, the male protagonists are secondary. The novel rambles too much and has too many main characters. They offer welcome relief from the novel’s facile politics–eye-catching seashells on long stretches of deserted beach. Sharp observations about status anxiety, social pretensions and upper-middle-class sexual mores are Wolitzer specialities. The feminist paragon Faith has the furthest to fall, and she tumbles off her pedestal in two ways, embracing distasteful compromises and railing against her protégé when Greer calls her out for them. But her slacker-ish mother turns out to be reliable and wise when called upon. ![]() Greer seethes after her pothead parents don’t fill out her Yale financial-aid form correctly, thus consigning her to non-Ivy exile. In this era of call-outs and take-downs, Wolitzer reinforces a more old-fashioned concept: no one is perfect. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |