Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508090026
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Lisa Alther. Dutton. $22.95.
``Five Minutes in Heaven'' is a game played, in this novel, in the basement rec rooms of 1950s Tennessee. It is, of course, an adolescent necking game. And it doesn't turn out very well for our heroine, Jude.
Over and over, as Jude explores her emerging sexuality, ``five minutes in heaven'' turns, for her, into ``a lifetime of pain. No, thank you,'' she finally tells her good friend Simon, on page 285.
You can't help thinking, though, that Jude's games would have happier conclusions if she'd just choose her partners more wisely. Yes, the deck has been stacked against her: her mother dies in childbirth, one childhood friend dies in an automobile accident, and another is beaten to death.
But does this really explain why she chooses as the love of her mature life a married, alcoholic masochist? Or why she then ends up haunting the streets of Paris, pursuing a beautiful stripper?
Jude wants to know ``the essential ingredient for a graveyard love,'' that kind of love that persists until death. Maybe she should consider the boons, and the bonds, of mature partnership.
- MONTY S. LEITCH
Water Atlas of Virginia.
By Frits van der Leeden. Tennyson Press. Lexington, Va. 46 plates. $47.95.
While the subtitle of this volume - ``Basic Facts About Virginia's Water Resources'' - may be an attempt to justify its limitations, ``The Water Atlas of Virginia'' still leaves me troubled as to its real purpose. The book is supposedly ``dedicated to the preservation of Virginia's most important natural resource.'' But after a one-page introduction that includes the tepid remark that ``Further environmental protection of land and water will be necessary to ensure a plentiful supply of water free from contamination and disease,'' any sort of guiding ecological consciousness disappears.
Instead, we are left with 46 carefully drawn maps (each on a different topic) accompanied by 46 short explanations. While the topics are subdivided into four areas (Physiography and Climate, Hydrology, Water Quality, and Pollution and Water Use), there are no introductions to each of these sections. Thus we are never told how all this splendid information fits together. I wish there had been a long introductory essay, substantial ones on each of the four areas, and then a compelling conclusion. Instead, I am left with ``just the facts, ma'am,'' and this reader needs more.
- JUSTIN ASKINS
Busy Bodies: A Claire Malloy Mystery.
By Joan Hess. Dutton. $19.95.
This aply titled mystery brings back bookstore owner Claire Molloy who is entangled in yet another crime. An elderly friend brings Claire into a neighborhood conflict. A newcomer has arrived in the staid community of Victorian homes. He's an artist who calls himself Zeno, stages outrageous sexually explicit events in his yard and calls it art. The neighbors are up in arms; so are religious zealots and realtors. But the police and prosecuters can't find a legal way to stop him.
A murder, a fire and the disappearance of millions of dollars in artwork are too much for Claire to resist and she interferes, much to the dismay of her police officer boyfriend. Although characters like Zeno and his stripper girlfriend Melanie add interest, ``Busy Bodies'' has a weak plot and one subplot is left unexplained altogether. The novel has a sketchy, unfinished feel; not one of Hess' or Claire Malloy's best.
- ANNA WENTWORTH
Monty S. Leitch is a columnist for this newspaper.
Justin Askins teaches at Radford University.
Anna Wentworth also reviews books and theater for WVTF-FM.
by CNB