Customer Reviews

Genevieve

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(34)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

In yet another amazing tale from EJD, another nameless husband narrates the story of his wife, his marriage, and his own infidelity. Genevieve Forbes is an accomplished businesswoman with a doctorate in her field. She is beautiful and smart, but leaves her husband wanting in the bedroom. She says she loves him, but she seems only able to perform her marital "duties," leaving her spouse feeling inadequate as a lover, and subconsciously looking for passion elsewhere. Elsewhere appears in the form of the gorgeous Kenya, when his wife is summoned home to Alabama as the result of the death of her grandmother. Kenya is young and uninhibited, and the husband of Dr. Forbes finds her impossible to resist. But this southern journey also affords this husband a glimpse into his wife's past; a past that is so filled with abuse and neglect that it has continued to impact her life and the way that she loves in the physical sense.
What her husband soon finds out is that this in no way affects her ability to love him from her soul.

Filled with secrets, drama, and the author's poetic prose that we've come to know so well, Genevieve is a beautiful story that forces us to examine our closest relationships and what we view as important.


DYB

Eric Jerome Dickey is back with his superb storytelling, this time it is a marriage in crisis in Genevieve. The unnamed narrator is a Buppie who has got it all; a career in medical research, a beautiful home in the Los Angeles hills and a beautiful wife with whom he is crazy in love. Genevieve; zhawn-vee-ehv, that is how she wants her name pronounced. This is just one precise thing about this woman who is beautiful, educated and accomplished. Married two years, the couple is brought face-to-face with their pasts when a phone call in the night sends them to rural Alabama to confront their present.

At first Genevieve intends to travel alone to bury her maternal grandmother but her husband who knows nothing of her family insists on going with her. This trip proves to reveal the cracks in the façade they have been living as all is revealed. In flashback we learn of the narrator's childhood in Texas with his mother and the tragic accident that changed his life and his move to Fresno, California to live with his grandparents. The pain of his loneliness and insecurities are also revealed as well as his frustration with the couple's intimacy or lack thereof. It is indeed his insatiable sexual appetite and intensity that threatens the core of his marriage.

Genevieve must face her demons and when she reunites with the assorted personalities in her family, a Pandora's Box of secrets is opened. There is white Grandpa Fred, who has a Confederate flag and is confined to a wheelchair. There are her various brothers and then there is Kenya. Sexy, sassy and feisty, she brings on the drama replete with tattoos and a motorcycle driving boyfriend. Genevieve is transformed before her husband's eyes from a sophisticated, assured woman to a little girl who hurts, cries and loses control. Who are these people?

EJD does it again. His complex and intense characterizations and dialogue are realistic, the settings are peppered with detailed imagery and his prose is filled with beautiful language and metaphors. His impeccable research with attention to detail is evident. It all fits together in the telling of the story, the racial and sexual politics, the hypocrisy of race in America, the human frailties that make us just people who are caught up in events and circumstances not of our own making but by virtual of our individual and collective histories. Readers are kept on their toes with unexpected twists and turns, straight through to the very end. It is amazing how the author can write a book that covers a span of about two or three days that in reality explores a lifetime. A great summer read.


Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub

I hate to join the chorus, but I'm done! May the REAL EDJ of "Friends and Lovers" (my favorite) and "Sister, Sister" rest in peace...

Is it me or are his books becoming less focused on developing quality fiction and more focused on erotica?

Eric, most of your readers have had sex before! We don't need the "step 1, step 2" guide in every...single...scene to understand how it's done. We got it! Move on!!

The scenes in about the first half of this book seem to be A) a set up to get people who aren't supposed to be in bed together in bed, B) the actual sex, OR C) the tension/conflict/remorse felt by these folks when they get out of the beds they shouldn't have been in in the first place.

I've heard that EJD is pretty deep into erotica/porn in his personal life, but its become almost a featured aspect of his most recent books. He needs to just publish a couple erotica books like Zane and get it out of his system!

I did like how he slowly reveals the main character's past throughout the entire book so you get more understanding into her. I also liked how he drops a bomb on you about some things in Genevieve's husband's past. This makes this book BY FAR superior to his last few, but still inferior to his earlier work.

Overall, this is not the same guy who wrote Friends and Lovers and Sister, Sister. May that EJD rest in peace. He will be missed... Well, it seems from reader reviews that he has been for quite a while. :(

Eric Jerome Dickey's writing is evolving in every new piece of fiction that he produces. Genevieve, the author's new novel is no exception.The last novel by Mr. Dickey, Drive Me Crazy, was the author's dabble into pulp fiction, now he writes Genevieve, a cross between an Shakesperean play, the novel or book, Lolita, and an 1950's Robert Mitchum's film noir movie.The book begins with the narrator, a nameless character, who just so happens to be in bed with his wife's sister, mind you, this is only the beginning of the book. (sex, lies, adultery with an in-law-it's get no better than that) All of this action and the story has yet to begin. If I begin to get dramatic, at times, excuse me, it's the aftereffects of all of the drama in this book, it hasn't worn off yet. Enough of that. This book is absolutely wonderful! I don't want to get into anymore of the specific details about the plot because it is soo easy to give away the story line. However, if you are an avid EJD fan, than you know, this is required reading. If this is your first read by EJD, you will be in for an incredibly, intriguing read that won't dissappoint. The characters, the language and the range of emotions that are displayed during the story are at times witty, emotional and just downright disturbing. The one thing to keep in mind when reading. APPEARANCES CAN BE VERY DECEIVING!!!! I heard that they is going to be a new display at the Smithsonian's Natural Sciences, IT IS THE EVOLUTION OF ERIC JEROME DICKEY....A SPECTACULAR STORY BY A SPECTACULAR WRITER

GENEVIEVE, Eric Jerome Dickey's eleventh novel is yet another intense examination of the souls of black folks. Poetic, raw, and at all times engrossing, GENEVIEVE manages to strip bare flawed characters with threads of mystery holding together their lives. The premise alone--a sexually unfulfilled but loving husband falling under the spell of his wife's uninhibited younger sister--allows for such fertile exploration. Some authors would have still fumbled the ball, but Dickey, boy oh boy does he NOT fumble the ball. Kid has hands like Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, and Walter Payton wrapped into one. The story is a puzzle, with clues sprinkled throughout, and Dickey never lets his grip loosen, never lets his able hands drop the ball, or the pen. Pay attention to the dialogue, the language.

Genevieve Forbes, the wife of the unnamed narrator, is a beautiful and mysterious woman with a PhD and the ambition and drive it takes to reach that lofty educational status. But what she has in drive and smarts, she lacks in bedroom passion. Not passion, because she has plenty of that, but bedroom passion. The erotic impulse to get in the zone...the erogenous zone. Meanwhile, her husband, his libido is in overdrive. His desire for his wife is off the charts. And, unreturned, he is left broken, fragile, and yes, vulnerable.

Enter Kenya. Genevieve's younger sister. Genevieve's polar opposite. A passionate, uninhibited, fire in the loins type of woman.

Doesn't take a PhD to understand the peril that will follow for our marrieds.

But GENEVIEVE is so much more than just the documentary of an affair. It is a character study, a family genealogy, a heartfelt examination of life, its many winding roads, and the travels we take. Dickey gets to the souls of his characters. Beneath the outer layer, directly to the heart of their lives. GENEVIEVE is excellent.

The story that Dickey is trying to tell has so much promise but gets lost in the purely gratuitous sexuality. Every time the plot gets interesting there is another poorly written porn-like description of an almost disgusting sexual scene. I have read several of Mr. Dickey's books and it dawned on me after reading this one that they are all the same. The story becomes less important than the sex scenes because Mr. Dickey is so repetitive in his depiction of sexuality in his novels. No matter which book you pick up the sex scenes read the same! It is amazing to me that Dickey is regarded as someone who does justice to writing about women when he clearly can only write from a man's point of view. That becomes even more clear when reading his depictions of sexuality in his novels. This story, Genevieve's story, could have been told so much better than the way it was. It is my opinion that the sexuality of Mr. Dickey's novels has become the central theme to his writing. The plot and complexity of his characters appear to be mere accessories to the graphic sexual encounters he spends the bulk of his imaginitive writing on. I am disappointed because I love a good story about black people and the complicated way that our history can play out in our lives and this story was abandoned for sex acts that have all been done before. Mr. Dickey why are all of your characters in every story you tell so driven by sex? I would expect this from Zane and now I can expect it from you.

EJD's books are exciting and well written. After books like THE OTHER WOMAN,DRIVE ME CRAZY etc., I was expecting GENEVIEVE to be a page turner. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. The plot was pretty much predictable after a few chapters. Don't get me wrong the book is okay just not as thrilling as his previous books. If you can, wait until it comes out on paperback! EJD I'm so disappointed!

Dickey Channels Nabochov in what is supposed to be an erotic thriller, but he falls very short of that genius work in Genevieve. There is a thin line between erotica and porn and unfortunately Dickey tithers a bit more in the direction of pornography in Genevieve. The story is far fetched at best and seems to be loaded with drama, and unnecessary explicit sex scenes in the hopes of titilizing the reader into interest. Yawn:(
Following that Dickey releases a novel every year, it seems as though the once engaging, interesting, and thorough plot developer that he once was, is scrambling to develop novels every year, perhaps for steady sales, but he is fast losing what he once held in terms of being a good writer with believeable, identifiable stories/plots. It's like the overcrowded music industry where more and more bad music is produced in the hopes of making the artist (and I use that term losely) richer, but I digress... I think a hiatus is necessary, go back to those days of taking your time to put out quality work. Art should not be rushed. Who the heck marries someone who they know absolutely nothing about, never met anyone in their family, and doesn't even know their hometown! Most of this book was unnecessary, and Dickey certainly has lost his knack for the use of foreshadowing. Better luck in a few years perhaps.

I was slightly disapppointed in this book. Although the writing is outstanding, the story itself left a lot to be desired. There were a lot of parts that would just drag and I found myself skipping paragraphs just to keep the story moving. Something I could never imagine myself doing with an EJD joint. I simply didn't like the story that much and I thought the main female character was an abomination. We learned her history too late in the story to care why she was the way she was. I just hated her.

I know it's not that important but can husband have a name.

Normally, I love EJD books, but this one was a total disappointment. The way the southern folk in the novel were extremely exaggerated. Shoot, I don't blame "Genevieve" for changing her name and moving far away...Anyway, I digress. The novel was a pain to get through and the whole story moved with the speed of molasses! Please pass on this if you can help it.