Word: spiced
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...LUCK CLUB by Amy Tan (Putnam; $18.95). A bright, sharp-flavored first novel on growing up ethnic in the U.S. The topic sounds familiar, but the Chinese spice added to this old recipe is invigorating and refreshingly true...
...speak in terms of eliminating genetic defects is to tread on slippery scientific and ethical ground. As any biologist will testify, genetic variety is the spice of life, a necessary ingredient to the survival of a species. Genes that are detrimental under certain conditions may turn out to have hidden benefits. Sickle-cell anemia, for example, is a debilitating blood disease suffered by people of African descent who have two copies of an abnormal gene. A person who has only one copy of the gene, however, will not be stricken with anemia and will in fact have an unusual resistance...
...Sylvester Stallone fashion. Despite all of this activity, however, Condon's energies are in vain. He convinces neither More nor the audience with his overbaked histrionics. By contrast, Margaret Meserve, who plays the Spanish Catholic spy Signora Chapuys, could have borrowed a bit of Condon's verve to spice up her less than exciting performance...
...lighter note, Mailer said he suspected the odds against a customer suffering harm while browsing at a bookstore were close to 100,000 to 1. "Such odds, if widely promulgated," he observed, "would have brought in many prospective customers looking for the spice of a very small risk." ; Biographer Robert Massie, president of the 6,500-member Authors Guild, offered a practical suggestion: he urged writers to ask publishers to withdraw their books from chains that had removed the Rushdie novel from their shelves...
Dante, a gifted parodist, adds spice to the gruel with glancing references to vintage cartoons, Sergio Leone movies and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. His sight gags can be as nimble as a house number that, when budged, somersaults from a nine to a six, revealing the new neighbors' address as 666, the sign of the Antichrist. But like many a Hollywood Voltaire, Dante wants his Candide candied. This is satire that hedges its bets. By the end, Ray and his friends must be heroes as well as oafs; the new neighbors must be villains as well as victims...