From Precious 2010
Review by Irenosen Okojie
Black Water Rising Review
By: Attica
Locke
Publisher: Harper Collins
Rich and absorbing, Black Water Rising is a slick, smart legal thriller. It is an addictive concoction fraught with politics, morality and law. Attica Locke has been lauded for this stylish, literary feast, catapulted into the company of the big guns and deservedly so. Dennis Lehaine and Scott Turow should make room, Locke is a writer to take note of and this is a brilliantly assured debut.
Set in the early 1980s, the novel charts the trials and tribulations of Jay Porter; our protagonist, fully formed and kicking and screaming onto the pages. Porter, a young black activist in the 1970’s is living his dream of becoming a lawyer. But the reality of realising the dream isn’t so sweet. The financial security he’d hoped for buckles in the distance, his clients are of a lower calibre and recognition eludes him. Life and work meanders along until a dramatic incident occurs. Jay saves a drowning woman and in doing so opens the flood gates to a war involving wealthy oil men, the elite of Houston and a battling union.
The novel deftly shifts between the past and the present. Locke is a gorgeous wordsmith who knows how to spin a good yarn. Her screen writing background is evident; the book is filmic, well etched and expertly paced. It refreshingly lacks all pretentiousness, instead cleverly weaves a complex plot with flawed characters that keep you turning the page. Interestingly, she manages the tricky task of capturing the spirit of the 1980’s with an eerily accurate reflection of the social and political climate of the time, all done through the jaded yet idealistic eyes of Jay Porter.
The city she portrays hums to life, the newness of wealthy development
areas, the decay of the poorer districts, the seediness of strip clubs
and flashy restaurants, all with an anxiety bubbling beneath the surface.
A haze of confusion clouds this slice of America, oil money and new technology
are bringing an economic boom to some and uncertainty to others. The novel
moves between these two halves; those fully exploiting these new opportunities
and those excluded from it and wary. Topics such as moral corruption, racism
and equality are heavily intertwined in the fabric of the novel, yet it
never feels bogged down by it. Not only is it personalised but the social
commentary is skilfully despatched through the guise of a thriller. Jay
Porter is a man biting the morality bullet.
Attica Locke has burst on to
the literary scene with a humdinger of a novel and it’s just a matter of
time before a screen adaptation beckons.
Review by Jennifer G Robinson
Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships,
Intimacy and Commitment
By: Steve Harvey
Publisher: Harper Collins
Steve Harvey’s ‘Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man’ is amongst a plethora of self-help books offering advice on the issue of intimate heterosexual relationships primarily targeted at yeah, women. It has been at the top of various best-sellers list and that the book is so popular, is an indication of the profound uncertainty surrounding relationships in twenty-first century western societies. Appearing on the cover of the book with a platinum-plated smile Harvey‘s created a bit of a controversial buzz on the blogs-sphere even garnering counter titles such as ‘Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman’. Mostly bloggers don’t sit on the fence, they either wish it was advice they’d gotten earlier on in their lives, or that it’s a load of forgettable, albeit entertaining rubbish which paints men in stereotype.
The book is borne out of Harvey’s radio show which contained a ‘Strawberry Letter’ segment. Listeners could call in with their questions, questions which normally centered on relationships. Many of the calls were from women where they would ask about the men in or out of their lives as the case may be. Harvey would answer their questions using his personal experience in response in his own homely and down-to-earth style.
Harvey’s missive to us, loosely based around the radio show in book form,
is as follows. He lays it out in three parts firstly mapping out the blue-print
for male thought; secondly he rationalizes the blue-print and lastly he
attempts to show women how to read the blue-print adding vignettes to allow
for errors – women’s errors that is.
He does have some prickly things to say about what women have ‘allowed’,
yes ‘allowed’ men to get away with in their dealings with them. This is
primarily because, according to him, women have not set and stuck to a
certain set of standards.
The chapter ‘How To Get the Ring’ is particularly insightful. You know
the scenario. A woman is in a relationship doing all the ‘right’ things
for her man, hoping that he’ll see that she’s ‘THE ONE’ and ‘put a ring
on it’ (a la Beyonce Knowles chant). Years and babies go by and still no
sign of said ring. Many of the
outcomes to this set of circumstances are that the man eventually leaves
to marry someone else before she can say altar-boy. Harvey believes this
happens because women don’t actually say that marriage is what they want
and stick to that desire. The man then believes that the set up they have
– especially in the early stages of a relationship, is what the woman wants.
To buy into ‘Act Like a Lady…’ you’ll have to submit to some adherence to
old fashioned gender roles, but some of the problems between men and women
revolve around these roles changing…dramatically without any real communication
over it. Harvey seems to want these roles reinstated. What he is also advocating
is that women deny their own personal/professional development to support
their man. If that isn’t a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is.
Some of the discussion that needs to be had over relationships is the challenging
of the social conditioning that we have in society and how we negotiate them
more successfully.
Harvey has come a long way since his ‘Kings of Comedy’ days, but Steve Harvey,
relationship guru might be a gig too far.
