Popular Fiction
Three novels tell life-changing tales of the power and limits of friendship and love.

By Susan Adams
Sunday, February 5, 2006

Trouble in Paradise

Few guys will get past page 11 of Kimberla Lawson Roby's Changing Faces (Morrow, $23.95). Girl problem alert! In addition to menstrual periods run amok, this novel features men who won't commit, eating issues, overly critical mothers and problematic female friendships. Though the book is set in Chicago, and Roby's characters are upwardly-mobile late-thirtysomething African Americans, women everywhere will relate.

The story: Three best friends are facing turning points in their lives. Whitney, a compulsive overeater with a mother and sister from hell, must decide whether red-hot Rico is playing her or really in love. Divorce lawyer Taylor realizes she may have to confront a life-threatening illness while trying to figure out what direction to take her three-year-long relationship with the gorgeous but marriage-phobic Cameron. Charisse, an ultra-religious, hypocritical control freak with a closet full of skeletons, has reached the breaking point with her husband, Marvin, who is suddenly refusing to obey orders.

Roby, the author of seven previous novels, writes in an engaging, conversational style, like a long chat-fest between best girlfriends. But she displays a penchant for oddly formal language. When Taylor describes the dinner she made for Cameron, she talks about how she "purchased" the food, "ignited" the burner and "placed" the salmon on a dish. Even when it's time for Taylor and Cameron's steamy sex scene, they don't strip off their clothes, they "remove" them. And Roby gets downright weird when she describes how the lovers "made sounds that we would never want our colleagues to hear." Huh?

Still, Roby dishes up enough drama, heartbreak, violence and redemption to keep the pages turning.

Strangers in the Night

Fiction writers everywhere are tapping the literary possibilities offered by online communication. In Miss Misery (Simon Spotlight, $21), Andy Greenwald takes a charming stab at exploring how the virtual life of a 26-year-old foot-dragging freelance writer bumps up against reality and becomes scrambled, confused and ultimately liberated.

Greenwald's protagonist, David Gould, can't seem to get real life started. His girlfriend has left him for a high-level lawyer job in The Hague, and he wallows in his Brooklyn apartment, not writing the book he's on contract to do but whiling away hours reading other, younger people's online diaries. One diarist in particular, a beguiling raven-haired 22-year-old in Canada who calls herself Miss Misery, catches David's attention. Her wild, action-packed blog motivates him to create his own online diary and invent a fantasy life of his own. Soon David's diary comes to life, becoming a kind of second self.

But some unexpected turns, such as Miss Misery's move to New York and the arrival of an unsettling stranger, force David to get out of his chair and deal with life.

First-novelist Greenwald is an appealing writer who has a way with similes and metaphors. After a wild night on the town with Miss Misery, David "felt like the Kansas heartland, post-twister." Waiting for the train at his Brooklyn stop, he muses, "If the New York subway was the vibrant circulatory system of a living city, then the F train was, to me, a blocked artery." This counts for a lot in a book that's about the internal awakening of a young man. There are also numerous and specific references to alternative rock music that fans of the genre will enjoy. But ultimately the novel's main conceit -- David's virtual life breaking out of his computer and forcing him to confront himself -- becomes wearying and overdone.

An Affair to Remember

Love Walked In (Dutton, $23.95), by Marisa de los Santos, is the kind of book that makes you want to hunker down on a chilly day in a comfy chair and read straight through 'til dark. The beginning is light, entertaining and inviting, the middle grows more serious, and then, toward the end, the violins really start to play in this poignant, heart-tugging story about a single woman and a little girl who develop an unlikely bond.

Cornelia Brown, a 31-year-old grad school dropout, manages a funky cafe in Philadelphia. One day, a stunning Cary Grant look-alike walks in and sweeps her off her feet. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Clare Hobbes -- the daughter Cornelia doesn't know her new boyfriend has -- struggles to fathom her mother's increasingly erratic behavior. Fate throws Cornelia and Clare together days before Christmas.

An unabashed romantic who adores old films such as "The Philadelphia Story," Cornelia can be cutesy, verging on cloying. "He laughed a pure, warm, amber-colored laugh that made me feel pure, warm, and amber-colored," she remarks about her new beau. But as de los Santos phases out the boyfriend and focuses instead on the relationship between Cornelia and Clare, she mines deeper emotions. Anyone moved by parental instinct or a child's fierce, helpless love for a mother will weep at the tender descriptions of Clare's reunion with her mentally ill mother.

This, the first novel by poet de los Santos, takes on some weighty issues, from bipolar disorder to child abandonment, and though it jerks plenty of tears, it doesn't seriously grapple with the thorny questions. But that's not what de los Santos is trying to do. The novel is already bound for Hollywood, with Sarah Jessica Parker co-producing. Movie-goers will want to tote along several packets of Kleenex. ·

Susan Adams is an editor at Forbes magazine.