Blanche Passes Go by Barbara Neely  (10)
|
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley |
Kindred (Bluestreak Black Women Writers) by Octavia E. Butler (171)
$11.20
|
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (Crossing Press Feminist Series) by Audre Lorde (8)
$11.53
|
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (277)
$10.17
|
This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are. Join Amazon Prime today. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In her second novel, Neely addresses the issue of color-based bigotry within the black community. As a child, Blanche White was taunted by her black classmates as "Tar Baby," and so she sets out less than enthusiastically for Amber Cove, a posh Maine resort filled with light-skinned blacks. The trip will get her out of Boston, however ("the most racist city in which she'd ever lived"), and give her a chance to see if her niece and nephew, who are spending the summer there, are picking up "hincty ideas" from what her friend Ardell calls "Caucasian-ettes." Despite an initially frosty reception at Amber Cove Inn, Blanche quickly makes friends with Mattie Harris, an "arrogant old girl"; catches the eye of Robert Stuart, a handsome pharmacist from the nearby town; and picks up the latest news--that Faith Brown, who routinely dug up and revealed dirt on others, was accidentally electrocuted while bathing. When a cove resident commits suicide, leaving behind a note implicating himself in Faith's death, Mattie decides that she and Blanche must get to the bottom of things. Blanche continues to appeal in her so-what-if-I've-got-an-attitude way, but while her first outing, Blanche on the Lam , was a mystery with a bit of message, this one is a message with a bit of mystery.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Segregation is alive and well at Maine's exclusive Amber Cove seaside resort. But it's segregation between the Insiders--light- skinned African-American professionals like pioneering feminist Mattie Harris, her godson Hank (an MIT history professor), and the nervously proper Tatterson family--and the Outsiders, dark-skinned upstarts like Tina Jackson, the dreadlocked beauty involved with Durant Tatterson, and Blanche White, the caustic domestic who, relocated from North Carolina to Boston, thinks she is taking a vacation from detective work (Blanche on the Lam, 1992). No such luck: Not only was bullying Insider gossip Faith Brown electrocuted in her bathtub the night before Blanche arrived, but Hank has vanished into the Atlantic, leaving behind a note admitting that he killed her. So where's the mystery? In Faith's purse, where Blanche, goaded by an intruder who unwisely thought to discourage her, finds a cache of papers whose nasty secrets make it clear that Faith was a lot more vicious than she looked--and that certain Insiders are protecting much more than their social standing. Even so, tracking down the victims of Faith's treachery makes for a pretty limp mystery that, as in Blanche's debut, takes a back seat to an acerbic portrait of class infighting at its most corrosive. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
In her second novel, Neely addresses the issue of color-based bigotry within the black community. As a child, Blanche White was taunted by her black classmates as "Tar Baby," and so she sets out less than enthusiastically for Amber Cove, a posh Maine resort filled with light-skinned blacks. The trip will get her out of Boston, however ("the most racist city in which she'd ever lived"), and give her a chance to see if her niece and nephew, who are spending the summer there, are picking up "hincty ideas" from what her friend Ardell calls "Caucasian-ettes." Despite an initially frosty reception at Amber Cove Inn, Blanche quickly makes friends with Mattie Harris, an "arrogant old girl"; catches the eye of Robert Stuart, a handsome pharmacist from the nearby town; and picks up the latest news--that Faith Brown, who routinely dug up and revealed dirt on others, was accidentally electrocuted while bathing. When a cove resident commits suicide, leaving behind a note implicating himself in Faith's death, Mattie decides that she and Blanche must get to the bottom of things. Blanche continues to appeal in her so-what-if-I've-got-an-attitude way, but while her first outing, Blanche on the Lam , was a mystery with a bit of message, this one is a message with a bit of mystery.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Segregation is alive and well at Maine's exclusive Amber Cove seaside resort. But it's segregation between the Insiders--light- skinned African-American professionals like pioneering feminist Mattie Harris, her godson Hank (an MIT history professor), and the nervously proper Tatterson family--and the Outsiders, dark-skinned upstarts like Tina Jackson, the dreadlocked beauty involved with Durant Tatterson, and Blanche White, the caustic domestic who, relocated from North Carolina to Boston, thinks she is taking a vacation from detective work (Blanche on the Lam, 1992). No such luck: Not only was bullying Insider gossip Faith Brown electrocuted in her bathtub the night before Blanche arrived, but Hank has vanished into the Atlantic, leaving behind a note admitting that he killed her. So where's the mystery? In Faith's purse, where Blanche, goaded by an intruder who unwisely thought to discourage her, finds a cache of papers whose nasty secrets make it clear that Faith was a lot more vicious than she looked--and that certain Insiders are protecting much more than their social standing. Even so, tracking down the victims of Faith's treachery makes for a pretty limp mystery that, as in Blanche's debut, takes a back seat to an acerbic portrait of class infighting at its most corrosive. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
See all 13 customer reviews...
