Word: isabell
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...death squads? White skins still lord it over black skins, but, unlike North Americans, Brazilians have a working concept of interracial society. "All colors merge into one joyous, sun- stunned flesh-color, coating the sand with a second living skin," writes Updike of Copacabana, the beach where Tristao meets Isabel. In a gesture of courtly love, he presents her with a ring stripped from the finger of a matronly tourist. The initials on the crest are DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution?). Tristao reads that as "to give...
This is the kind of multilingual humor practiced by Vladimir Nabokov, except that he would have let the reader make the translation. Subtlety is not Updike's intention. Tristao and Isabel may be descended from ancient legend, but they owe much of their character to Monty Python and those old underground comic books in which Popeye and Olive Oyl assumed positions not found in the funny papers...
...Isabel visited the sisters in Waco in 1991. Now she knew more about cults and was trying to get them out. They did not mention the child Chanel, and she didn't either. Her daughters looked thin but healthy. Not brainwashed, despite Koresh's endless preaching...
...cult expert told her to keep going down, keep gaining trust. That was last January. Things had changed. "Kathy was deteriorating," says Isabel. Koresh still preached, but now the sermons Isabel audited contained profanities. She returned again in February. Kathy stared straight ahead and recited Koreshian dogma for 15 minutes running. Isabel talked with a friend about kidnapping the girls but decided against it. Instead she began calling every week, every week, trying to lure them from Koresh's grip...
...Isabel Andrade says, "I'm glad I never met the baby. It would have been too much...