From Publishers Weekly
In its eagerness to give voice to a multitude of characters, Kranz's huge, overpopulated, hyperkinetic novel of low-rent Manhattan life struggles to invest each voice with meaning. Centered on Flip, an aspiring actor (and bike messenger ), his boyfriend Warren (a psychic), Flip's sister, Rosie (a union organizer and all-around agitator), and Warren's sister, Madeleine (mentally unstable and absent in France), the novel is launched when Warren's rich and egregiously selfish WASP family informs him that he must take in Madeleine's biracial, bicultural eight-year-old daughter, Juliet, while Madeleine gets treatment at a French hospital. Meanwhile, Rosie is trying to coordinate a strike while suffering from fibroids (the novel abounds in graphic descriptions of menstruation), and Flip maniacally works one temp job after another between bit parts. In caring together for Juliet--the book's most sympathetic and sophisticated character--Flip and Warren find common ground, but Warren's trust fund and Flip's adventures in gay clubs constantly threaten their relationship. Filling in around the edges of this story are assorted actors, directors, teachers, lesbians, in-laws, daycare workers, Chelsea gym boys and still others, most of whom make brief appearances before disappearing altogether. In the end, the book's swollen cast proves too big, and each individual too self-absorbed: Flip with his insufferable bitchiness, Warren with his inner psychic "visions" and even Madeleine with her post-asylum pouting strain the reader's sympathies. Mostly composed of a series of theater-style monologues drifting into conventional narrative, the novel stretches the bounds of melodrama, but never transcends it. Kranz does offer a good wide-angle portrait of New York's multilayered populace (each character wears several different hats in any given day, to which most New Yorkers will relate), but it's not enough to tie the book's many different strands into a cohesive whole.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Kranz's first novel artfully explores the complexities of life for two gay men trying to come to terms with their relationship in a not-so-tolerant world. Set in New York City, the story is told from the perspective of a core group of characters: Warren, a psychic from an upper-class family; his partner, Chip, an aspiring actor; and Rosie, Chip's sister, a union organizer with relationship troubles of her own. The main thrust of the story is Warren and Chip's struggle to legitimize their relationship with some sort of marriage (they spend most of the novel trying to decide what actually to call their union). Kranz also explores the lives of the people closest to them as well as the different dimension their world takes on when Warren must suddenly become a parent to his eight-year-old niece. Though the story seems a little overlong, the author is adept at creating smart and sometimes hilarious dialog; by the end of the novel these people seem like family. Recommended for all public libraries.
-Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
