Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991 TAG: 9104180042
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
By Mary McGarry Morris. Viking. $19.95.
Powerful and painful, "A Dangerous Woman" resembles the works of Faulkner and Steinbeck in foreboding intensity. The title character, Martha Horgan, is an unloved and unlovely woman who longs for affection, for assurance that she is like other people. Unfortunately, she is not. Emotionally disturbed, she wrecks destruction upon herself and everyone else she comes in contact with.
Taunted with the cry "Marthorgan" from childhood and regarding the world with myopic intensity, Martha forms obsessive attachments to anyone kind to her. At 31, she bears the psychological scars of a brutal incident she suffered as a teen-ager. Among the people in the small Vermont town where the novel takes place, there is not one person much less flawed than Martha. They're all damaged in various ways. Yet the people are accepted as normal, whereas Martha bears the stigma of being "mental" as clearly as though the word were written on her forehead.
"A Dangerous Woman" begins "The murder is seldom discussed" and the suspense builds until the last few pages. Ugly and violent, despite a few examples of compassion, the novel will captivate the reader.
- LYNN ECKMAN
Aces: A Novel of World War II.
By Robert Denny. Donald I. Fine. $18.95.
"Aces" began as an interesting idea: two young men from a small town in Pennsylvania joining the military to fly planes and battle the Germans. Imagine that one of them, Col. Mitch Robinson is related to Gen. Helmuth Karl Bernard von Moltke; and that von Moltke flies the new top-secret German jet. And Robinson will meet von Moltke in the skies. Could be fascinating.
Unfortunately, "Aces" becomes a soap opera about young men coming of age in the shadow of World War II. We experience the sexual awakening of the American boys. We see how the high-born Mitch is ruined forever by having fantastic sex with a servant girl; how his buddy, Maj. Lon Amundson, from the other side of town, really is in love with Mitch's socially-acceptable girl. We follow them to England and into the skies, and we follow them to bed. Fliers, we are to assume, have much time to dally.
Denny, a veteran of 35 B-17 missions excels when he writes of the experience in the sky. His account of the fears and bravado of the fliers is worth the price of the book. It is a shame there's not more of it in "Aces."
- ROBERT I. ALOTTA
Memories of My Life In a Polish Village.
By Toby Knobel Fluek. Knopf. $19.95.
This book is beautiful in its simplicity. Toby Fluek was a young Jewish girl growing up in a Polish farm village during the 1930s. She describes the innocent, hard-working life of her close-knit family then and during World War II in short, unsentimental and understated entries. Her story is told in words, paintings and drawings which, primitive in nature, are richly rendered on glossy stock with a generosity of color and space.
The quiet images of Toby Fluek's memoirs will long linger with readers of all ages, and Alfred A. Knopf should be commended for the tasteful and attractive presentation of her work.
- MARY ANN JOHNSON
Virus.
By William Harrington. Morrow. $19.95.
As a computer user, I have a healthy fear of computer viruses, those bits of information injected into a system to cause damage to the data being stored on the machine. The recent conviction of a student for bringing a defense department computer network down, brought this widespread problem to public view. In this novel, William Harrington uses illegal access to the FAA flight control radar systems as the plausible centerpiece of a plan to smuggle large quantities of cocaine into the United States. His characterizations are shallow - the good guys are very good and the bad guys are very bad. The technology described is accurate and the methods discussed are possible, but the story doesn't ring true. It's still a good beach book, but it cannot fill a dreary afternoon.
- LARRY SHIELD
Trip To Tulum.
By Milo Manara and Federico Fellini. Catalan. $17.95 (trade paper).
For want of a better term, call this one a graphic novel. It's subtitled "from a script for a film idea," and it's almost a set of illustrations that director Federico Fellini might have used to prepare a story for the camera. Actually, the book began as a serial that Fellini wrote in 1986 for an Italian newspaper. He described what he thought might be his next film project. That didn't happen, but his fantasy on a trip from Rome to Los Angeles to the Central American jungle inspired cartoonist and illustrator Milo Manara. They collaborated on this soft-cover version, and it's a delight for their fans. Manara's earthy eroticism suits Fellini's story and they appear to share a strong sense of playfulness and humor. From the opening, where a 747 takes off from the bottom of a pond, to the equally bizarre conclusion, the free-wheeling tale is a series of wonderful surprises.
- MIKE MAYO, Book page editor
Lynn Eckman teaches at Roanoke College./ Robert I. Alotta teaches at James Madison University./ Mary Ann Johnson is an alumna of Hollins College./ Larry Shield writes software.
by CNB