Interesting Women: Stories [Paperback]

Andrea Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2003

American brio confronts European sophistication in these critically acclaimed stories of seduction and self-discovery by New Yorker writer Andrea Lee. In vivid prose shot through with mordant irony, Lee offers the reader a rare combination: sensual evocation of the moment and profound insight into the underlying struggles of gender, race, and class that shape relationships worldwide.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It would be difficult to overstate the elegance of this story collection from Andrea Lee, who produces fiction and journalism for The New Yorker, among other venues. Lee's interesting women are usually Americans trying their luck in Europe; most of them are African American wives of the Italian elite. Because her subject matter is so rarified (the first story mentions cashmere two times in as many pages) and because her writing is so beautifully transparent, it seems at first that Lee is coasting on the glamour of her subject matter. Not so--these stories are every bit as well put together as the women who inhabit them. "Brothers and Sisters Around the World" is an unforgettable tale of a well-to-do black woman who vacations in Third World countries with her European husband: "on vacation we travel the world to get hotter and wilder." When the narrator impulsively slaps a teenage girl who's been flirting with her husband in a village near Madagascar, the balance of the whole island is upset, with surprising results. Lee limns race, class, and a peculiarly female ambitiousness while always keeping her language as deceptively simple and sharp as an Armani suit. --Claire Dederer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Although Lee has published one novel (Sarah Phillips) and one book of reportage (Russian Journal), she is best known for her frequently anthologized short stories infused with international glamour and a particular brand of American world-weariness. The 13 here are thematically unified, focusing on outsiders doubly estranged and often struggling to factor a sexual power play into the equation. The unnamed narrator of "Brothers and Sisters Around the World" is vacationing in the Caribbean with her young son and her Franco-Roman husband, who adores the tropics and assumes she does, too. "He doesn't seem to see that what gives strength to the spine of an American black woman... is a steely Protestant core... that in its absolutism is curiously cold and Nordic." Another American wife whose Milanese husband assumes she is traditional gives him a birthday present of an evening with two elegant and very young fancy women. The book takes its title from the musings of a woman vacationing in Thailand while her husband investigates mines in China. "Interesting women are we ever going to be free of them? I meet them everywhere these days, now that there is no longer such a thing as an interesting man." Reading Lee, you know you're in the presence of an author fully able to, as another narrator says, "picture an endless mazurka of former wives, husbands, lovers, children, and assorted hangers-on, not excepting au pairs, cleaning women and pets." The stories are full of tension sexual, material, racial. If they are less than perfectly realized, and if their glitter seems to fade from a distance, they still provide instant and sophisticated gratification. New York author appearances. (Apr. 16)Forecast: Lee's work is frequently published in the New Yorker and other high-profile venues, and readers already captivated by her cool, ironic voice will be this collection's chief audience.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (April 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812966848
• ISBN-13: 978-0812966848
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #792,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put this book down, October 20, 2002

By 

artemis "artemis" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Interesting Women: Stories (Hardcover)

I read a wonderful review of this book in the New York Times, bought it and had it on my shelf when a good friend told me I HAD to read it. Once I started, I couldn't put it down! The stories are about everything I find relevant and interesting: relationships between men and women, and between women and women, the dynamics of race, and travel and life in other countries. Isn't this what life is about? Well it is for educated, mixed-race women who enjoy and appreciate travel and living overseas, and who are or were married.
I am looking forward to Andrea Lee's next book with eager anticipation!

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The expat bore, July 19, 2002

By 

"johnadenlewis" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Interesting Women: Stories (Hardcover)

I think this book should be retitled "Some Moderately Interesting Women and Some Very Uninteresting Women All of Whom Fit a Personality Template." The author is clearly a worldly, sophisticated, and well-travelled women, but I think she assumes that a worldly person who runs with other worldly people in exotic locales is somehow inherently "interesting." Unfortunately, she mainly presents us with numerous examples of the "expat bore."

I think she has a tin ear for dialogue, yet she does a capable job of evoking a sense of place, and her most believable characters are the ones that I assume are largely autobiographical: the recently divorced and remarried expat American woman in Italy who is dealing with her children, her race, their new stepfather, and the echoes of her previously directionless, dissolute, yet financially comfortable life. The worst story is where the author attempts to render her pre-teen daughter in first person. The story sounds like a mother trying to imagine what her daughter thinks about, yet projects both her voice and her concerns upon the daughter. It's just awful. I was led to this collection of short stories by Lee's story in the New Yorker "The Prior's Room." In this story, Lee actually gives us an interesting woman, and the New Yorker story is far superior to anything in this collection. I recommend the New Yorker story, but not these stories.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best book i've read in a while, May 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Interesting Women: Stories (Hardcover)

This book is great! The writing is suburb--dense but not too "much" for before bed or vacation reading. Her female characters are so well drawn. They are smart, self aware but never self-indulgent and annoying and the tone is great and the themes--about women relating to women, to men, about class distinctions among blacks, etc--are fantastic. it departs from the Bridget Jones genre, taking more risks, is slightly more literary than the multitude of "female perspective" books out there right now, and more complicated. A total pleasure to read, i'm recommending it to everyone i talk to.