Beautiful Bodies
1 journaler for this copy...
Bought in the Bookpeople Summer Sale for the bargain price of £1.33!
Good read
Amazon Review
BEAUTIFUL BODIES by Laura Shaine Cunningham is a "chick book" that I normally wouldn't pick up on a bet. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the author's two previous volumes of memoirs, SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS and A PLACE IN THE COUNTRY, and we've exchanged emails of mutual admiration, so I bit down on my emery board and got on with it. Just between you and me, I'm glad I did. But I'm left wondering if I need testosterone replacement therapy.
The plot tells you right off that it's not a book for Real Men. Six female pals in their mid-30s living in New York gather at a private dinner party at the apartment of one to have a baby shower for another. Baby shower? Yikes!
Jessie, the hostess, is a successful journalist still in the post-coital afterglow of an affair out in Colorado with one of her subjects. Nina, a chronic dieter and the primary caregiver for her dying mother, owns a nail salon. Nina is also fresh off an afternoon tryst with someone she met in her apartment building's laundry room, a New Age Sensitive Fella who invited her up for herbal tea ("Celestial Seasonings"). Sue Carol, a waitress and struggling thespian with a substance abuse problem, has just left her adulterous husband. Sue Carol savors all the little dramas in her life — they'll make her a better actress. Lisbeth, an ethereal, anorexic artist/model pining after a lost (and married) lover, spends a significant portion of her energy staving off her landlord's efforts to evict her from her rent-controlled apartment. Martha, a real estate agent obsessed with her exorbitant earnings and the material goodies they buy, has meticulously planned to have a child with her fiance, but has just learned that she's sterile. And lastly, Claire, the mother-to-be. Claire is an independent, free-spirited musician — she plays the krummhorn — who's happily made a world for herself in an 18 by 20 foot room in a local residence for women. She's blissfully happy with her pregnancy and the prospect of being a single mother. The baby's father, a global wanderer, may never be seen again.
For me, the chief fascination of BEAUTIFUL BODIES was in watching the nuances and shifting dynamics of the relationships between the six women as they come together on a winter night to celebrate Claire's impending motherhood and share secrets. For example, Nina is the first to show up at Jessie's apartment. Later, Lisbeth is the second guest to arrive, and:
"When a third woman enters the room, it is clear which two women are the closer friends. Triangles always come to a point."
And still later, as the assembled group sits for dinner:
"The others had taken their places, as the (place) cards indicated .... The lines were drawn. The dull knives waited."
My two favorite players are Jessie and Martha. Jessie, who desperately tries to keep her party on track in the face of spoken anxieties and revealed confidences. Jessie, whose own angst is growing. (Her new lover did promise to call at 8:00 PM, didn't he? Was he turned off my her mastectomy scar?) And Martha, whose catty criticisms comprise a potential flamethrower in an atmosphere of volatile emotions.
Amazon Review
BEAUTIFUL BODIES by Laura Shaine Cunningham is a "chick book" that I normally wouldn't pick up on a bet. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the author's two previous volumes of memoirs, SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS and A PLACE IN THE COUNTRY, and we've exchanged emails of mutual admiration, so I bit down on my emery board and got on with it. Just between you and me, I'm glad I did. But I'm left wondering if I need testosterone replacement therapy.
The plot tells you right off that it's not a book for Real Men. Six female pals in their mid-30s living in New York gather at a private dinner party at the apartment of one to have a baby shower for another. Baby shower? Yikes!
Jessie, the hostess, is a successful journalist still in the post-coital afterglow of an affair out in Colorado with one of her subjects. Nina, a chronic dieter and the primary caregiver for her dying mother, owns a nail salon. Nina is also fresh off an afternoon tryst with someone she met in her apartment building's laundry room, a New Age Sensitive Fella who invited her up for herbal tea ("Celestial Seasonings"). Sue Carol, a waitress and struggling thespian with a substance abuse problem, has just left her adulterous husband. Sue Carol savors all the little dramas in her life — they'll make her a better actress. Lisbeth, an ethereal, anorexic artist/model pining after a lost (and married) lover, spends a significant portion of her energy staving off her landlord's efforts to evict her from her rent-controlled apartment. Martha, a real estate agent obsessed with her exorbitant earnings and the material goodies they buy, has meticulously planned to have a child with her fiance, but has just learned that she's sterile. And lastly, Claire, the mother-to-be. Claire is an independent, free-spirited musician — she plays the krummhorn — who's happily made a world for herself in an 18 by 20 foot room in a local residence for women. She's blissfully happy with her pregnancy and the prospect of being a single mother. The baby's father, a global wanderer, may never be seen again.
For me, the chief fascination of BEAUTIFUL BODIES was in watching the nuances and shifting dynamics of the relationships between the six women as they come together on a winter night to celebrate Claire's impending motherhood and share secrets. For example, Nina is the first to show up at Jessie's apartment. Later, Lisbeth is the second guest to arrive, and:
"When a third woman enters the room, it is clear which two women are the closer friends. Triangles always come to a point."
And still later, as the assembled group sits for dinner:
"The others had taken their places, as the (place) cards indicated .... The lines were drawn. The dull knives waited."
My two favorite players are Jessie and Martha. Jessie, who desperately tries to keep her party on track in the face of spoken anxieties and revealed confidences. Jessie, whose own angst is growing. (Her new lover did promise to call at 8:00 PM, didn't he? Was he turned off my her mastectomy scar?) And Martha, whose catty criticisms comprise a potential flamethrower in an atmosphere of volatile emotions.
