The human energy swirling around the empanada stand is full of sound and fury but signifies very little.
A novel about a band of metaphorical brothers (and sisters and lovers) whose social life centers around an empanada kiosk in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s.
Nichols (The Voice of the Butterfly, 2001, etc.) seems intent on collecting a group of strangely eccentric and self-consciously goofy characters, brought together more by loneliness than by their love for empanadas. The narrator is “blondie,” one of the only non-Latinos of the group, a shy and sexually inexperienced young writer, washing dishes at the Night Owl Café, penning novels (the robber-baron novel, the Bowery Bum tale, the college romance) and, not surprisingly, collecting rejection slips. He falls desperately in love with Cathy Escudero, a high-strung flamenco dancer from Argentina, who’s accompanied, literally, by Jorge, a 17-year-old prodigy on the guitar. At the center of things is Àureo Roldán, empanada cook extraordinaire. While he has the patience of a long-suffering bartender, he also has trouble staying a step ahead of greasing the palms of a bagman for the local Puerto Rican mob. On the periphery are the true oddballs: Luigi, whose face has been hideously deformed by fire; Alfonso, a mathematical genius from Argentina, who’s trying to decide which of two fiancées to marry; Chuy, a rich, one-handed gigolo; Eduardo and Adriana, an on-again, off-again couple, each determined to cuckold the other; Popeye, a tattooed sailor who drives a diaper truck and is reputedly an inexhaustible lover. You get the picture. Cathy, the flamenco dancer, has the greatest insight into the meaning of the kiosk: “That empanada stand is a silly place…. It’s a club for little boys to hang out in who don’t want to grow up.” Now there’s one character who speaks the truth.
The human energy swirling around the empanada stand is full of sound and fury but signifies very little.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8118-6052-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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