Sykes uses the device of a self-deceived, unreliable narrator (a technique first made famous in English literature in The Canterbury Tales) to satirize a self-absorbed, ignorant, and selfish culture. It's harder than it seems to succeed at this type of satire: most writers succumb to the temptation of having their initially blind hero/ine achieve some sort of epiphany, after which s/he is redeemed and surrenders old selfish, greedy ways. (Think of the tedious, dour piety of "The Right Address," whose heroine is brutally chastened into abandoning her pursuit of status and prestige.)
By contrast, Sykes keeps the fluff afloat, no easy task. For example, her heroine is at once slutty and prudish: she immediately sleeps with any man who has money, but coyly refers to sex as "visiting Ipanema" (after the trendy "Brazilian bikini wax"). This substitution of half-truths and distortions for ugly reality is the hallmark of the unreliable narrator.
By having her heroine allude to sex by referring to an unnecessary consumer luxury service, Sykes neatly encapsulates the narrator's consumerism, and demonstrates the ultimate result of rampant consumerism: the self and others become mere fungible currency, incapable of honesty, self-knowledge, or intimacy. But the heroine never realizes this. She remains foolish and shallow, and never becomes a blunt instrument of a tedious morality tale -- or a complex character. The genre is limited, but Sykes exploits it to its fullest, with no apologies.
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Top reviews from other countries
Fuchs Joan
Eine kleine Ahnung von Mode ist sicher hilfreich
Reviewed in Germany on February 12, 2005