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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I know what happened to the photographer....,
By
This review is from: Downtown (Mass Market Paperback)
he became a bestselling novelist!I love Anne Rivers Siddons and I bet that the photographer in DOWNTOWN still does too, in his own weird way. This story is partly autobiographical but not enough so to be a memoir. The editor is patterned on the notorious and terrific Jim Townsend of Atlanta Magazine, where Siddons worked in the '60s and the staff members she worked with then show up with personalities slightly skewed. It's obvious to the reader that every bit of the material here is close to Siddons's heart. In some places she seems restrained, as though she's holding something back; in others she lets loose and her youthful passion surfaces. I lost my paperback in a recent move (I'll replace it with a hardback so it'll last) or I'd copy a passage so you could see the sensuousness of her writing. She is, without a doubt, one of the finest wordsmiths practicing today. She writes about things that are part of her, what she has known and what she cares about -- and she'll make it all a part of you, too. Sunnye Tiedemann
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best of ARS I've read so far,
This review is from: Downtown (Mass Market Paperback)
I've read a few of Anne Rivers Siddons books so far, and they were mostly light reading, the story of a woman who has some issues and then seeks to resolve them. But Downtown is a different and more complicated book. This book details many of the civil movements in the 60s like the Vietnam war, the African-American quest for equality, and the changing of society. The different types of characters in this book are fascinating, from the upper crust society types to the people living in projects and slums. The narrator, Smoky, is a sort of tabula rasa, a blank slate who records many of the changes around her, as she herself changes. Not having lived through this period in history, I found that reading this book gave me a lot of insight into the lives of people in the 60s. It was a very engaging read and I would highly recommend it. And the ending is somewhat surprising, which should keep you tuned in until the last page.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What's up with this?,
By
This review is from: Downtown (Hardcover)
Just wondered if anyone else has ever cottoned to the fact that the scene where Smoky visits La Carrousel with Luke, and sits with him, John Howard, and Juanita the Black Panther, is duplicated from "Peachtree Road"? Check out Chapter 16 of PR, in which Shep, Lucy, and Jack Venable visit the same club. Much of it has been translated verbatim, even to Smoky's awareness of her white flesh glowing "rottenly among all the rich shades of blackness around her" (or something like that), the same dialogue with two of MLK Jr's lieutenants, and the same description and encounter with King himself. What's up with that, I wonder? Did the author run out of inspiration...or did she underestimate her audience's intelligence? I agree with the assessments below, by the way, that it's a substandard effort. Siddons can do, and has done, much better.
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