- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (21 Nov 1991)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099844206
- ISBN-13: 978-0099844204
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 609,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Often hilarious, always witty second novel by the film-star author of the ultra-hip, well-received Postcards from the Edge (1987). As with fellow stylists Nora Ephron in Heartburn and Fay Weldon in She-Devil, Fisher's knock-'em-dead brightness: and wit overwhelm any urge the author may have toward strong plotting and a forceful climax. Even her punchiest scenes fade to the subjective and fail to give shape to their brilliant contents. That said, this is terrific fun and shows Fisher headed toward the majors. At age 28, Dinah Kaufman, who lost her virginity three times (the first two were not meaningful), reviews her love-life, sex-life, and her ex-marriage, which, for Dinah, is still - subjectively speaking - on the stove and cooking. The facts aren't clear, but it seems that Dinah's recently ended marriage to older playwright Rudy Gendler, whose star is still rising on the New York stage, lasted until she could no longer bear his overly critical nature and after eight years walked out on him. But divorce leaves Dinah hanging by her thumbs and facing an emptiness only Rudy can fill. Then out of the blue, Rudy shows up on the West Coast, where Dinah writes the soap opera Heart's Desire, pops her into bed - and tells her he's found Miss Right back East and foresees marriage. He loves Dinah, but Miss Right is young, cool, calm, and serving - and never an emotional anatomizer like Dinah. Dinah indeed is a master surgeon at tissuing emotions until they bleed like the skin tom from her ever Band-Aided thumbs: "My father loved me and I never saw him. He might as well not have loved me. So, I guess I confuse love with absence. Which is perfect. I can have an entire relationship with nothing going on from the other side. When nothing becomes enough, anything more becomes unsettling." So, during a West Coast writers' strike, she pursues Rudy to the Hamptons on Long Island, with no plan except to extend the pain in her thumbs into her whole psychic being, a pain that gives Rudy - and the reader - shivers. Oral surgery with laughing gas. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
A study of metropolitan mating manners by the author of "Postcards from the Edge". Dinah Kaufman is attracted to unsuitable men, including her ex-husband, a successful playwright with whom she continues to be obsessed. And she has a tendency to merge real life and the soap opera scripts she writes.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've read all of Carrie's books and this one is so typical of her blunt honesty and humour. If the ex-husband isn't Paul Simon and she is the actual heroine, then I don't know who they could be. She repeats the autobiographical theme with her next book, "The Best Awful" which I found soul-stripping. How she combines tragedy with a fantastic sense of humour puts her right up there with the best. Carrie gets my vote any day!
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I couldn't decide whether to give this one a three or a four and really want to give it a three and a half. This was an enjoyable book and I liked the way it was writtem. I think Carrie Fisher is a very talented writer.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
14 reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
More thinly veiled autobiography
5 Sep 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
In Postcards from the Edge you could easily see that there was only a fine line dividing Fisher from the exploits of her main character, Suzanne Vail. After all, Fisher had been in drug therapy; so was Vail. Fisher was a movie star, daughter of movie stars; so was Vail. The success of Postcards from the Edge, however, wasn't in the voyeuristic opportunities of seeing how Fisher's life was like from her point-of-view, but the point-of-view itself: sarcastically caustic and witty. Well, it's all back in Surrender the Pink. And I mean all back. Once again, you wonder just how much of Dinah Kaufman is fictional and how much Fisher. How much of this failed relationship between Dinah and her famous playwright ex-husband Rudy Gendler is taken from the break-up of Fisher and famous songwriter ex-husband Paul Simon. The wit and sarcasm are there as well, this time informed with brief quotes on the nature of sex in the animal kingdom. However, Surrender the Pink isn't quite as satisfying as Postcards from the Edge. For all the action that takes place here, what one remembers are the interminable "talking heads" on the cliched differences between men and women. Even though the characters (and Fisher) realize that they are repeating cliches, it makes it no easier for the reader to swallow. The only thing that kept me reading at times were the occasional glimpses of true lunacy that was the focus of Postcards from the Edge. Surrender the Pink is also a more traditional narrative, with chapters and backflashes that flow evenhandedly, rather than the herky-jerky, episodic nature of Postcards from the Edge. Unfortunately, the bridges in Surrender the Pink probably would have been better exorcised rather than be allowed to bog the narrative as they do. For all its jerks, Postcards from the Edge was the better book.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Carrie Fisher can act AND write!
10 Jun 1999
Format:Hardcover
I FINALLY read "Surrender the Pink" and I have to tell you, while I wasn't quite able to surrender to the story entirely, I did enjoy a semi-fun read. First, the down points. For being such a strong woman, Carrie comes off as entirely too sexist for my tastes. She repeatedly reinforces the idea of the "weaker" sex, continually whining and kavetching about how horrible it is to be a woman. I agree, women are oppressed and a lot of times it's tough, but this male-identified authoress puts her own sex and herself down entirely too much. (As far as the character being a different person other than herself, I'm not buyin' it.) But she does have some pretty funny insights about the human condition and that alone kept me grinning and turning pages. I was fascinated by Carrie's choice to include little science factoids on animal mating habits, juxtaposing these tidbits with facets of her own (character's) story. It was a nice frame. I also dug the open-ending ending,. Glad it's not TOO tidy.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Good if you've already read Postcards from the Edge
21 Sep 1996
Format:Mass Market Paperback
In Postcards from the Edge you could easily see that there was only a fine line dividing Fisher from the exploits of her main character, Suzanne Vail. After all, Fisher had been in drug therapy; so was Vail. Fisher was a movie star, daughter of movie stars; so was Vail. The success of Postcards from the Edge, however, wasn't in the voyeuristic opportunities of seeing how Fisher's life was like from her point-of-view, but the point-of-view itself: sarcastically caustic and witty. Well, it's all back in Surrender the Pink. And I mean all back. Once again, you wonder just how much of Dinah Kaufman is fictional and how much Fisher. How much of this failed relationship between Dinah and her famous playwright ex-husband Rudy Gendler is taken from the break-up of Fisher and famous songwriter ex-husband Paul Simon. The wit and sarcasm are there as well, this time informed with brief quotes on the nature of sex in the animal kingdom. However, Surrender the Pink isn't quite as satisfying as Postcards from the Edge. For all the action that takes place here, what one remembers are the interminable "talking heads" on the cliched differences between men and women. Even though the characters (and Fisher) realize that they are repeating cliches, it makes it no easier for the reader to swallow. The only thing that kept me reading at times were the occasional glimpses of true lunacy that was the focus of Postcards from the Edge. Surrender the Pink is also a more traditional narrative, with chapters and backflashes that flow evenhandedly, rather than the herky-jerky, episodic nature of Postcards from the Edge. Unfortunately, the bridges in Surrender the Pink probably would have been better exorcised rather than be allowed to bog the narrative as they do. For all its jerks, Postcards from the Edge was the better book.
(This "review" originally appeared in First Impressions Installment Two [http://www.owt.com/users/gcox/fi.contents.html].)
(This "review" originally appeared in First Impressions Installment Two [http://www.owt.com/users/gcox/fi.contents.html].)
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