Volume 55, Number 19 · December 4, 2008
Waking Up to a Nightmare
By Francine Prose
Lulu in Marrakech
by Diane Johnson
Dutton, 307 pp., $25.95
Like many of her readers these days, the characters in Diane Johnson's novels expend considerable energy weighing their dark presentiment that the world is a treacherous and malevolent place against their bright hope that order and reason might prevail long enough so that everything may, if only temporarily, turn out for the best. Plucky and openhearted, her heroines often attribute their appealing personalities to the fact that they are Californian. What a Golden State it must be to have produced these remarkable beings, women gifted with so many apparent contradictions so usefully combined—paranoia and pragmatism, sociability and reserve, a functioning superego happily coexistent with a libidinous attraction to the glittery lure of adventure and high romance.
Review, 3339 words
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