Word: colwin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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True to form, Colwin's hero and heroine are just regular folk. They don't want to cause any trouble. Although carefully crafted, they certainly don't break the mold of characterization. Teddy plunges periodically into brooding funks stemming from the deep spring of childhood neglect and a broken family; otherwise, he reassures his wife with his deliberate, undaunted demeanor. Jane Louise gnaws rabbitlike at her anxieties, the classic neurotic New York...
Flatter than Texas, flimsier than New Year's resolutions, Colwin's supporting cast garnishes her narrative with outright cliches. Jane Louise's schoolmate, Edie, scandalizes her wealthy WASP family when she drops out of cooking school in Paris to marry Mokie, a Black man. Mokie, in turn, laughs at how uncomfortable he makes white people feel when they mistake him for a waiter. Sven, Jane Louise's colleague, manages to think and talk about nothing but sex, to send a frisson of enigma and anticipation down every woman's spine, yet maintain his job as director of the design department...
...Colwin probably intends these paragons of unoriginal thinking as types, to highlight Jane Louise's `normal' abnormality. We all worry because we don't lead lives of endless Kodak moments strung together, but no one really does, Colwin reassures. This cunning ruse fails, in part because Jane Louise just isn't that normally abnormal, but mainly because it makes for dull reading...
Most critics praise Colwin highly for her prose, which they rightly credit with wry, elegant clarity. When she merely narrates, Colwin's unusual voice charms the reader. But she puts this remarkably stylish turn of phrase in the mouths of her less-than-remarkable protagonists. Stilted, unnatural dialogue results...
...looking for a whiz-banging pageturner, an unputdownable crackerjack, a humdinging literary tour de force, a ripping yarn, look elsewhere. Laurie Colwin has written several delightful, original books. Her last, A Big Storm Knocked It Over, isn't one of them...