book reviews 2/9

I've been reading a lot of fiction lately, mostly for my genre fiction reader's advisory class. Here are a couple reviews for books I enjoyed a lot:

Brown Girl in the Ring (1998)

Author: Nalo Hopkinson

Genre: Science Fiction / Fantasy

Plot Summary: Magic mixes with dystopian themes in a Toronto of the near future. Toronto has become a "donut hole city"--the upper class has abandoned the city and taken its infrastructure with them. The coalescence of suburban sprawl and urban decay has created a barricaded inner-city, called "the burn," in which the poor and people of color must reinvent their world without the modern trappings of capitalism. People barter and farm for sustenance and turn to herbs for health care. The rich can still afford hospital care, but organ transplants are provided from pigs. A prominent politician in the suburbs is in dire need of a heart-transplant and uses this as an election ploy to get voters excited about the prospect of reinstating voluntary human organ donors. Against this backdrop, a fantastical story with voodoo at its forefront emerges. Ti-Jeanne is a young mother who lives with her herbalist and voodoo practicing Mami in the burn. Mami has always disapproved of Tony, Ti-Jeanne's estranged ex-lover, but his buff (crack-like drug) addiction and involvement in a drug ring ruled by a duppy (an evil spirit from Caribbean folklore) provides an avenue to reconciliation when Tony seeks Mami and Ti-Jeanne's aid in escaping the burn. The drug lords are recruited to find the politician a heart transplant and Tony is blackmailed to find a match and commit murder to obtain the organ. Ti-Jeanne must not only save Tony from the drug lords, but must protect her family as well. This mission turns into a story riddled with generations of family connections, Caribbean folklore, voodoo, and mystery.

Geographical Setting: Toronto, Canada

Time Period: Near Future

Appeal Characteristics: Brown Girl in the Ring is a deliberately paced, engrossing read. The characters are vivid and likable, but take a back-seat to the action when necessary. This makes for a storyline that is both character- and action-oriented. The tone is somewhat bleak with its emphasis on dystopian themes and the misuse of traditional magic. Hopkinson’s writing style is frank and direct and the story takes place over the course of a few days, which makes it a quick read. The dialogue is mostly written in patois, a creole dialect, which adds authenticity to the novel’s African Diasporic themes and traditions. These references to Caribbean folktales, lore, and magic frame the story and add ethnic and multicultural dimensions to a genre somewhat unaccustomed to such motifs. For these reasons, Brown Girl in the Ring is a refreshing addition to the Science-Fiction/Fantasy genre.

Read-alikes: Hopkinson has spearheaded a place in the sci-fi/fantasy genre for third world writers and writers of color with her short story anthologies So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy and Mojo: Conjure Stories. These make good readalikes for readers who enjoyed Hopkinson’s emphasis and treatment of tradition, ethnic and multicultural themes, and magical elements. Fans of Hopkinson’s direct writing style, dystopian themes, multicultural representation, and strong young woman of color protagonist will enjoy Octavia Butler’s Parable series: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (should be read in that order).

Red Flags: Some violence, strong language, voodoo/magic themes, implied sexual situations.

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Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005)

Author: Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Genre: Mystery (Amateur)

Plot Summary: Ivon Villa is a Women's Studies professor in Los Angeles. Her and her lesbian partner's desire to adopt a Mexican baby brings her back to her home town of El Paso. On the plane into El Paso, Ivon reads in a magazine about the hundreds of murdered women whose mutilated bodies have been found in the desert around the maquiladoras (factories) in Juarez, just across the border from her hometown. Her cousin, Ximena, is a social worker who helps women working in these maquiladoras. Ximena sets Ivon up with a pregnant factory worker who is unable to care for her child once it is born. Against the backdrop of heated family tensions, Ivon and her loved ones find themselves in the middle of the tangled and dramatic mystery of the Juarez murders. Due to ineptitude's of the authorities in the U.S. & Mexico, Ivon finds that to get to the bottom of the murders, she must act by herself. SPOILER: Not only does the woman carrying the baby Ivon wants to adopt turn up mutilated in the desert, but Ivon's little sister, Irene gets kidnapped from a fair in Juarez. Ivon's search for Irene turns up a trail of government corruption, sexual predators, prostitution rings, live snuff films, and the consequences of a general laissez-faire border culture brought about by NAFTA and globalization.

Geographical Setting: El Paso, Texas / Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

Time Period: Contemporary (1998)

Appeal Characteristics: This novel is based on real events, so the reader learns a lot about border culture and the history of the Juarez murders as the plot unfolds. Fans of strong female protagonists will love Ivon, the butch and headstrong main character. The reader also spends a lot of time immersed in Ivon's Latino family and feels the tension about her lifestyle choices (being a lesbian, dating a white woman) and decision to adopt. The writing style is witty, the characters are likable and well defined, and the pace is very fast. The book is a definite page turner as most chapters end with new information or cliff-hangers. As a reader it's difficult not to become as obsessed as Ivon is with solving the murders. The mystery isn't necessarily solved in the end, but Gaspar de Alba suggests in the last chapter, "This wasn't a case of 'whodunit,' but rather of who was allowing these crimes to happen? Whose interests were being served? Who was covering it up? Who was profiting from the deaths of all these women?" (333). The mystery is left dangling, mostly due to the fact that it is based on real events and the murders are still a fact of life in Juarez.

Read-alikes: Readers who enjoyed Alicia Gaspar de Alba's fictionalization of a true story and immersion in Mexican culture would most likely enjoy her historical fiction novel about a 17th century Mexican radical feminist, Sor Juana's Second Dream: A Novel . Fans of Gaspar de Alba's vivid characterization, tough lesbian protagonist, and exposure of political ineptitude would enjoy fellow Lambda award winner Elizabeth Pincus' The Two-Bit Tango , a hard-boiled lesbian mystery novel set in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Another novel featuring a lesbian sleuth is Elizabeth Sims' Holy Hell: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story , also a good readalike because the subject matter is similar (mysterious disappearances of women and discovery of mutilated corpses) and because the protagonist is drawn to the killings in a personal way and ends up being pursued herself due to her interest in the crimes. Readers who liked the wit and fast-paced writing style of Desert Blood would enjoy Abigail Padgett's The Last Blue Plate Special, the second novel in the Blue McCarron mysteries in which a lesbian social psychologist and her partner investigate a string of potential serial murders against successful women in California. This novel is also a good readalike because it features interracial romance as well as struggles with homophobia. Readers who enjoyed learning about border culture through Gaspar de Alba's social-critique-style would also enjoy James C. Mitchell's Choke Point, a private investigator mystery involving border culture, narco-trafficking, maquiladoras, and government corruption. Readers looking for more information on Juarez would greatly enjoy Charles Bowden’s nonfiction work, Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future, a photo-essay on the corruption, drug trafficking, and disappearances on the US-Mexico border.

Red Flags: Graphic descriptions of mutilation, rape, and murder. Adult language. Sexual situations (hetero & homo). Racial tension, homophobia.