Harlem Girl Lost: A Novel
This lurid urban soap opera—which sold 65,000 copies when originally self-published by the author, a Bronx fire inspector—follows Silver Jones as she flees Harlem, with its loose women of the night and seductive, heroin-shooting men, for Spelman College, where she dreams of becoming a doctor. Blue's wide cast is often villainous, paper thin and brimming with crack-smokers and sex-peddlers: there's Silver's confidant, Auntie Birdie, a "nearly 7 foot when he wears his stilettos" transvestite hooker who falls for men with roving eyes; Jesse, Silver's "junkie whore" of a mother whose inspirational aphorisms shape Silver's life; Chance, Silver's longtime, drug-dealing love who doesn't know how to dance; and a serial killer who drains his prostitute victims' blood and dresses each in a wedding gown before having sex with their bodies. The episodic story line, which has echoes of another successful lost-girl saga,White Oleander, moves briskly and assuredly between clichés. Suspense isn't one of the author's strong points, but it's heartening that even in Blue's world of double-crossing, misogyny, drugs and brutality, an against-all-odds fairy tale can come true.(Oct.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.