|
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
Digging for More than Gold, 13 Oct 2001
Versace, de la Renta, Givenchy. The great designers are the gods of a better life in the world of Grace Sorentino and her daughter Jackie. But as a divorced beautician with an out-of-control teenage child, how do you get there?By marrying up, the manager of Saks Fifth Avenue's Miami store says to Grace as she fires her at the request of a high-paying customer with unreasonable expectations. Ring around the finger. Snare a wealthy widower, preferably a Jewish one. Desperately, Grace follows her advice. Against all the odds, she hooks Sam Goodwin, a very wealthy transplanted businessman from Brooklyn, at the funeral of his socialite wife. Posing as a friend of the deceased, Grace offers to collect her clothing and donate it to charities. Along with the clothes, she collects Sam's interest, which spirals into love. Also desperately, Jackie has fallen for Darryl, a skinhead who is filling her with greed, bigotry, and disrespect for her mother. Believing she is entitled to the trappings of wealth, she will do anything for money: theft, prostitution, and blackmail. Grace is just about to land Sam when disaster strikes. Does Grace have the strength to see herself through the ultimate catastrophe and conquer wealth, power, and love? The reader cheers on Grace as she struggles with her self-respect and integrity throughout the book. Is she any better than a gold digger? Can she instill in Jackie compassion and decency? She keeps asking herself these questions, and tries to answer yes. Grace confronts the obstacles to her goals in a surprising climax, in which the reader feels her release her pent-up frustration with her life and try to untangle herself from her web of intrigue and deceit. One may wish she would lose her passivity earlier in the book, but it adds to the power of the ending.
|
