Word: jeane
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...remoteness of conventional medicine and red-tape-tangled managed care make readily available herbs and other supplements seem particularly appealing. Consumers value them as preventive measures, as something distinct from potent pharmaceutical drugs that are prescribed only after disease strikes. "Doctors are getting more and more inaccessible," says Leda Jean Van Stedum, 45, a Denver secretary who was shopping in a Vitamin Cottage chain store for preparations of black cohosh and dong quai to head off premenstrual discomfort...
...tries to update Houston's soul-lite formula. Wyclef Jean co-wrote the superb reggae-ish title song, and Lauryn Hill produced the fabulously funky remake of Stevie Wonder's I Was Made to Love Her. The problem is with the Old Guard: producer David Foster's work is dull, and Dianne Warren and Babyface, who both wrote tracks, have better work on their respective resumes. Still, you've got to give Houston credit for stretching herself on at least part of this disc; the first song, It's Not Right but It's Okay, is one of her best...
Unfortunately, the patches of annoying or simply bad writing mar the novel considerably. For example, Ray continually has "conversations" with inanimate objects, ghosts (such as Billy's) and animals. These are included, in some cases, for no discernible reason, such as this "exchange" with Jean's stuffed animal, the poodle Bojo: "'Scared, Bojo?' I ask him. `No,' he answers, staring straight forward." The author also leaves the reader in unnecessary suspense about what happened during the crucial "perfect summer, awful summer," includes characters with dubious importance to the plot and tells the reader too much about them. This...
...grown up, it is perhaps almost the logical thing to do to fall in love with one's younger sister, although Ray is aware of how the outside world sees this relationship: "The more I'm seeing this through someone else's eyes, the dirtier it seems." Ray and Jean's incestuous passion impairs them from having satisfactory long-term relationships outside the family. Jean avoids them altogether, living alone and restricting herself to one-night stands. Ray's relationship with Sally, his girlfriend of six years, is a fragile thing, falling apart the moment he breaks his promise...
Although it is quite obvious why Jean and Ray are having this affair--from childhood they have relied on each other in order to survive the abuse they have gone through, "holding on to each other" as Ray puts it--it is still difficult to see it as a triumphal moment when they finally run off together after a dramatic scene as they are leaving Billy's funeral. Their story is a great love affair, but it is also an incestuous escape from the outside world, which with few exceptions had chosen not to help the Johnson children...