Customer Reviews

Cheap Diamonds: A Novel

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This novel should come with a warning attached: Caution, Addictive!
Once you're into it, forget about having any other kind of life. There you are, captured, captivated, turning the pages, unable to put it down, not wanting it to stop, and either in love with Cherry Marshall or under the illusion that she's you, or vice versa. Cherry is the delightful narrator of this lark, a Candide from Arkansas moving around in the best of all possible worlds, which happens to be the world of New York's glamorous models. And when Cherry steps back to let someone else have the spotlight, it's almost as good. The other characters are all wild and young and full of hope, ambition, lusts and beauty. Cheap Diamonds is not only a perfect summer read - it's the best way of keeping summer permanently with you.

Cherry Marshall, the narrator of this novel about a tall country girl (five foot, thirteen)learning to be a big agency model, is a descendant of Huck Finn. She is naive, but not a sucker, honest, but willing to tell a fib here and there, awed by The Big Apple, but still very much in touch with her roots in the heart of the heart of the country, in her case, Arkansas. She knows how recount her adventures with frankness and humor, when to zip right along and when to slow down and savor the nuttiness and occasional depravity of the city during that time, as in the saturnalian episode at Max's Kansas City night club, where the "in Crowd" of the 1970s drank and doped and danced. Her picaresque tale delights with its pace and zany cast of 1970s characters.
Two of them, Cherry's boss Suzan, and male model Lale Hardcastle, who is running away from his fiancee, also come from Arkansas and the contrasting ways they adapt to city life are instructive. It takes most of the book for them to get to really know one another, sort out their values and seize their real opportunities, professional and romantic. Besides the main characters there are a baker's dozen of others in the glamour game, and cameos by Richard Avedon, Diana Vreeland and Andy Warhol. Mailer draws on her own experience as a Wilhelmina model in depicting the whole crazy crew.
There is a lot of insider baseball stuff about eyelash treatments and waxed body parts, hair styles, high boots and cloths, cloths, cloths. Remember mini-skirts and fringed vests and head scarves? The author has a brilliant sense of color, not only for the hippie and high fashions of that period, but for the varied hues of the city itself. There are also several excellent scenes set back home in Sweet Vally, AK. It is a lively tale and wonderful stroll down memory lane.

Cherry is such an honest, God fearing, valiant girl and charming beyond everyone and everything around her that she illuminates every situation she encounters in the wonderful, vapid world of High Fashion. Norris Church Mailer is a southern writer and as such there is much in and around and under what could seem like just a great entertaining read. This is a wise and telling book. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end.

Norris Mailer sets exactly the right mood for CHEAP DIAMONDS with the very first sentence. "There just simply wasn't any such place as 830 Broadway." The world of modeling, which Cherry Marshall is about to enter, simply couldn't exist: it's exciting, cheap, daunting, sleazy, top of the mountain, Queen of the World high; bottom of your dirty socks low, a Never-Never land, a tumble down a rabbit hole even stranger than Alice's, but, unbelievable as it all seems to the reader, seeing it through the eyes of "Arkansas-girl-on-her-own" Cherry Marshall, it is real. Mailer's characterization of Cherry scintillates as the the protagonist grows from gawky and inexperienced into svelte and sophisicated without ever losing the wholesome vulnerability that makes you love her in the first place.
The novel is fast-paced, not even losing steam during the epistolary sequences, and the melange of colorful characters combined with the serendipitous quirks and turns of the plot make the work positively Dickensian, but every single one of those characters is thoughtfully crafted and three-dimensional--no cardboard cutouts
here. As you meet them, you recognize the authenticity of humanity that Norris Mailer has given them; however, Cherry is the best of all. I promise, you're going to love her. She's the part of every woman that longs to break away and become something special, and she's the kind of girl every man would love for a companion--extra special in every way but without an ounce of arrogance in her.
You don't have to have read WINDCHILL SUMMER to appreciate Cherry Marshall, but if, after you finish CHEAP DIAMONDS, you feel the need for more of her companionship, check out the first Norris Mailer novel.

There was a time when a person could come to Manhattan with just a few dollars and find a place to live, a career and friends. This novel captures that time beautifully. Mailer's clear voice and sharp eye make the city come alive, with guest-star appearances from Andy Warhol, Halston and Debbie Harry.

I admit the first time I picked up this book, I kind of smirked-I expected this book to be an easy and entertaining read, but lacking in depth. I was correct about the first two assumptions. This book had to be one of the most entertaining reads. The author does a great job of interweaving realistic situations with humor. Many times throughout the novel, I found myself laughing or being surprised in a pleasant way. The main character of this novel is a likable character-she is an innocent girl from Arkansas who enters the modeling world in NYC in the seventies. I loved the descriptions of the seventies fashions and the hair! I loved the innocence of the main character, how honest she was and how she had a conscience. Eventually, that conscience would collide many times with the standards of her new world. I would definitely recommend this book, if you want an easy, enteraining and humorous read. Not only that, but this book will have you wondering what will happen to the main character and will have you thinking about her long after you've finished reading it.

Norris Church Mailer is from Arkansas. So am I. She has a degree in art. So do I. She's a former secondary teacher. So am I. That's where the similarities end. She's a wonderful writer who, in her second book, CHEAP DIAMONDS, brings back memories of small town Southern life that made me smile, frown and think.

Mailer's story is a delight to read. In it, she tells of the impossible rise of Cherry Marshall, a gal from Sweet Valley, Arkansas, in the New York fashion world of the 1970's. Interwoven with the story of Cherry's growing success is the story of her friend Cassie who is left behind by her boyfriend, Lale, when he can't take the pressure of settling down. Both Lale and Cherry wind up in New York and become high-powered models while Cassie stays behind in Sweet Valley to fights a personal tragedy. Cherry also keeps up a correspondence with her friend, Baby, who is always getting into messes.

The story is told from Cherry's perspective, often by means of letters she has either sent home or has received. Cherry is honest, thought-provoking and sincere. She suffers over her choices, wondering if they will send her to hell, as her minister back home would tell her. She tries to hold onto the roots of her hometown goodness while struggling with the murky morals of her wide open New York world.

Mailer has done a wonderful job showing the difference between Southern culture and the New York high life of the 70s, along with Cherry's attempt at balance. This is a wonderful read.

As one of a million small-town girls who came to Manhattan to follow her big dreams, it was exhilarating to read about this character's arrival in NYC in the Seventies--a romantic bygone era of Avedon, Studio 54 and a much hipper, grittier Soho. Loved the fashiony touches--patent leather gillies and burnt-orange trimmed suede hot pants (those were the days!). But this is no cookie-cutter chicklit tale. Underneath the beautiful characters and the glossy fashion world, this is also a very touching story about love and loss and I found myself in tears at some parts of Cherry Marshall's journey through her new, often confusing world. I read this author's first novel and didn't want to say goodbye to this charming, gutsy character. I'm so glad I didn't have to! I hope Ms. Mailer will be giving us a third installment of Cherry's adventures next year? S'il vous plait?

Norris Church Mailer has a clear and honest voice, and her novel has an intriguing- and attractive- plot (especially for fashionistas)! What a colorful read!

NC MAILER IS AN AMAZING STORYTELLER,
A FEMININE G.G.MARQUEZ MEETS CARLOS ZATON MEETS ARKANSAS,
INTELLIGENT, INSIGHTFUL,YET FUNNY,
THE 70's FASHION SCENE IS HUNG ON A WALL AND THE NAIL IS DRIVEN
RIGHT BETWEEN IT'S EYES!
YET THIS IS ONLY THE BACKDROP FOR A COMPELLING STORY OF FRIENDSHIP,
LOVE AND GROWTH.
BRAVO,
r.b. sarasota, fl.