I tried. I really, really tried. Bigfoot Dreams missed the mark, despite my attempts to enjoy myself. At first glance, the premise of this novel had lots of potential. A woman who makes up stories for a weekly tabloid finds herself in one heck of a predicament -- after five years on the job and no problems thus far, one of her stories turns out to be true. My imagination ran wild with me...what story was it? How strange would that be? What will happen to her? The author did elaborate on these questions, but my expectations far outweighed the results.

As for the writing itself, Francine Prose did a very good job. Much better than I could ever do, so immediately she gets two thumbs up. I believe the problem I had with Bigfoot Dreams was the story itself. It was a thinker-novel, not as cut-and-dried as one might think. And while sometimes this can be good, I was disappointed in this case. Bigfoot Dreams seemed like it would be a riot; in the end, I was bored to tears and wondering where all the fun went. A quirky subject deserves a quirky explanation, but there was too much psychological babble going on.

Best parts about this book: the main character, Vera's, job -- how fun it would be to sit around making up stories all day; Vera's friend, Louise -- I was far more interested in Louise's antics as a former member of a cult who wore all white and ate salad every day; and also Vera's on-again, off-again husband, Lowell -- an Arkansas hippie (need I say more?). Bigfoot Dreams had vast potential to be so funny, crazy, and imaginative, but Ms. Prose weighed it down with too much reality. I'll try again, though. Maybe Blue Angel will be more suited for me.

Having once been a newspaper reporter, I simply had to read this book. Immediately, I was delighted by the story of a reporter who's hired to make stories up for a sleazy tabloid rag. Here's a smart and funny way of turning the usual newspaper story on its ear: instead of looking for truth, the heroine avoids truth at all costs.

Along the way, we meet some fabulous characters: her blossoming pre-teen daughter, her ne-er do well absent hubby, a crazy hippy pal, parents who live to criticize, a love-torn co-worker. It all works well, especially when the Vera the reporter invents a story that turns out to be true. (And don't you love the name? Vera, which means true.)

The only reason I give this book three stars instead of five, is that the story complely fizzles out at the end. Fired for telling the truth, Vera goes on a long journey to get her life together, tries to reconnect with her husband, and essentially learns nothing. Unfortuntately, ths is Prose's worst flaw. She simply does not want to end the story, and certainly not in a satisfying way. Only in BLUE ANGEL, does she come to a real, albeit depressing, conclusion.

But for the first two-thirds of this book, it's beautifully and observantly written.

"Bigfoot Dreams" is a distinctly American book about hope and grace and popular culture. Although it includes a smattering of outdated references to fantasy games and smoking aboard aircraft, it has aged very well since its initial publication in 1986. Vera, Rosie, Solomon, and the other characters here seem as real as your neighbors. Bigfoot emerges as both the quintessential tabloid story and the catalyst for musings on what motivates people. Among other things, this book tells why we read tabloids so avidly in supermarket lines. Its central conceit, that fiction writers sometimes have a firmer grasp on reality than they intend, pays inventive homage to the aphorism that truth is stranger than fiction. Along the way, we're treated to observations about motherhood, friendship, first dates, and life (especially in New York and Seattle). We also learn about cryptobiology. I'll remember this book as a gentle but exhilarating read, very different from but no less deserving than "Bonfire of the Vanities," Tom Wolfe's portrait of New York in the eighties.

In reading At Home with Sade, it's important to bear in mind that for a rather significant period of his life, Sade's home was prison, including the Bastille. Accordingly, much of this book concentrates on Sade's life behind bars. That can make even the life of this world-class reprobate somewhat tedious reading. Sade's philosophy, such as it was, extolled a life driven by the baser emotions. Yet, Sade himself could be remarkably prudish; he remained very much an advocate of double-standards -- drawing a distinction between the tolerant attitude he expected authorities to assume toward the nobility, and the much less lenient posture he expected those same authorities to take toward the "sins" of ordinary men. Sade indeed demanded a level of moral probity from his first wife that he never applied to his own behavior. In fact, Sade's real-life experiments in sexuality depended for their efficacy on a wider-societal moral framework that would find his choreographed sexual antics reprehensible and shocking. Yet, it is at once important and difficult not to allow one's opinion of Sade to obscure one's view of Gray's work. There is no denying that we are fortunate to have a biography this lucid in English.

It often seems difficult for anyone reading a biography of the Marquis de Sade to approach the task objectively for the simple reason that his life and writings precede him in a way unlike most writers and historical figures. Thus, the noun precedes him--"sadist"-and the adjective-"sadistic"-our language itself fixing the man's transgressions before the fact of his biography, making the biography appear superfluous in light of the enormity of the man's crimes. But there was, indeed, a real human being behind the noun and the adjective--Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade--and Francine du Plessix Gray's "At Home With the Marquis de Sade" provides an insightful, sympathetic, well written picture of that human being in all his complexity.

Gray's biography concentrates largely on the relationship de Sade had with two women-his first wife, Renee-Pelagie de Sade, and his indomitable mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. De Sade's wife remained a constant companion to the erstwhile Marquis for more than a quarter century, suffering his sexual excesses (including dalliances with her younger sister, Anne-Prospere), the ensuing scandals and, ultimately, the many years of imprisonment. His mother-in-law, a social climbing women of fierce and irrepressible will who at first found the Marquis charming, ultimately became his worst oppressor, driven like the Eumenides to avenge de Sade's seduction of her virginal younger daughter, Anne-Prospere. She was, in Gray's characterization, a woman who exemplified "primitive female fury, a rage that is unquestioning in its self-righteousness." And it was Madame de Montreuil who unstintingly worked to keep the Marquis imprisoned for over thirteen years, freedom coming only with the fall of the Bastille in 1789, when the Marquis was forty-nine years old.

Gray deftly uses correspondence and other contemporary historical documents to illuminate de Sade's life, including his prominent involvement as "Citizen Louis Sade" in the Revolutionary government of France, his role in saving his hated mother-in-law from the guillotine in 1793, and his subsequent incarceration in the Charenton asylum from 1799 until his death in 1814, where he carried on as an author and director of numerous theatrical productions staged by the inmates of the asylum and by professional actors. Gray also puts de Sade's early life and sexual excesses in context, showing how his actions, while transgressive and freely chosen, were also the product of a society and an upbringing which allowed libertinism to flourish among the pre-Revolutionary French nobility and clergy. Finally, Gray provides illuminating, albeit brief, discussions of de Sade's literary works, putting his writings in historical context and showing that the excesses of the man's life did not attain the excesses of his imagination.

"At Home With the Marquis de Sade" is, in short, a carefully researched, lucidly written life of the historical figure who has come to symbolize sexual transgression, a biography that eludes the imprisonment of culturally fixed meanings to get at the real life behind the "Sadist".

It often seems difficult for anyone reading a biography of the Marquis de Sade to approach the task objectively for the simple reason that his life and writings precede him in a way unlike most writers and historical figures. Thus, the noun precedes him--"sadist"-and the adjective-"sadistic"-our language itself fixing the man's transgressions before the fact of his biography, making the biography appear superfluous in light of the enormity of the man's crimes. But there was, indeed, a real human being behind the noun and the adjective--Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade--and Francine du Plessix Gray's "At Home With the Marquis de Sade" provides an insightful, sympathetic, well written picture of that human being in all his complexity.

Gray's biography concentrates largely on the relationship de Sade had with two women-his first wife, Renee-Pelagie de Sade, and his indomitable mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. De Sade's wife remained a constant companion to the erstwhile Marquis for more than a quarter century, suffering his sexual excesses (including dalliances with her younger sister, Anne-Prospere), the ensuing scandals and, ultimately, the many years of imprisonment. His mother-in-law, a social climbing women of fierce and irrepressible will who at first found the Marquis charming, ultimately became his worst oppressor, driven like the Eumenides to avenge de Sade's seduction of her virginal younger daughter, Anne-Prospere. She was, in Gray's characterization, a woman who exemplified "primitive female fury, a rage that is unquestioning in its self-righteousness." And it was Madame de Montreuil who unstintingly worked to keep the Marquis imprisoned for over thirteen years, freedom coming only with the fall of the Bastille in 1789, when the Marquis was forty-nine years old.

Gray deftly uses correspondence and other contemporary historical documents to illuminate de Sade's life, including his prominent involvement as "Citizen Louis Sade" in the Revolutionary government of France, his role in saving his hated mother-in-law from the guillotine in 1793, and his subsequent incarceration in the Charenton asylum from 1799 until his death in 1814, where he carried on as an author and director of numerous theatrical productions staged by the inmates of the asylum and by professional actors. Gray also puts de Sade's early life and sexual excesses in context, showing how his actions, while transgressive and freely chosen, were also the product of a society and an upbringing which allowed libertinism to flourish among the pre-Revolutionary French nobility and clergy. Finally, Gray provides illuminating, albeit brief, discussions of de Sade's literary works, putting his writings in historical context and showing that the excesses of the man's life did not attain the excesses of his imagination.

"At Home With the Marquis de Sade" is, in short, a carefully researched, lucidly written life of the historical figure who has come to symbolize sexual transgression, a biography that eludes the imprisonment of culturally fixed meanings to get at the real life behind the "Sadist".

Ever see the movie "Disturbing Behavior" starring James Madsen and Katie Holmes, in which unruly teens were brainwashed by an Evil Doctor, so that peace would reign on the little island they lived on? A poor soul Speaks the Truth, but he is ignored and given a lobotomy. It ends with the protagonist, his girlfriend and kid sister fleeing in the dead of night, pursued by Evil Brainwashed Teens and Doctor.
Well, skip it and skip this very similar book. Unless you're on a long car trip and need something to pass the time. Here are some reasons why. The plot is holey - in the Swiss Cheese sense. The author doesn't bother to explain the most basic stuff, as other reviewers have noted. Teens don't live in a bubble - orbiting solely between school and home. They travel, have relatives, friends, bosses, co-workers, mentors, etc. who see them as more than just students or kids. I find it hard to believe that at least one of the students who was "sent away" didn't have at least one non-brainwashed adult seriously concerned as to their whereabouts. What about their siblings, for heavens sake?
If you are going to make the major brainwashing tool e-mail, you'd better do your readers the courtesy of offering at least a partial explanation. Readers are smart enough to connect the dots, but there has to be some whole picture for them to reach.
Also, the Internet is just too vast for all sites on a single subject (teen re-education camps) to be shut down. I'm not an Net expert, but I'm pretty sure that's still impossible these days. While the paranoia after a school shooting is a timely and intriguing topic for a novel, this one fails to do it justice.

Wow....this book was really awesome!....You feel like your right there in the middle of all this....i really hope that there's a sequel.

this book really makes you feel like its really happening and it freaks you out. it is one of the best books i have ever read. please let there be a sequel.

Being interested in the epistolatory writing genre for several years now (e.g. Ovid's Heroides, the Heloise and Abelard letters), I thought this book might be an interesting read - shedding light on not only the emotions at the 'end of the affair', but on the lives of the many women - Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth I to name a few - whose missives are included here. The chapters are divided according to the type of letter written - Refusal of Marriage letter, the Autopsy letter, the Divorce letter, etc. While many of the letters could fall into several catagories, it's an effective organizational device. Many of the letters by famous women were unfamiliar to me, so that was a nice bonus. I didn't realize when I purchased the book, however, that many of the letters included are from modern day, ordinary women. Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this concept at all - mixing 'historical' letters with contemporary letters (and emails). Provided the emotional and literary quality is on par - which might be wishful thinking, but wish it I did. Unfortunately, I found that many of the contemporary letters are amateurish and immature, often ineffectively vulgar, and poorly written. I'm sure the emotions are sincere, but that is not a justification for publication. While reading some of these modern letters might cause the reader to think "I'm not alone, other women have gone through this too" - which I am sure is the aim of the book - I just ended up thinking that I could outwrite and better express myself and my emotions more than most of the contemporary women included in this book. Not to say that all the contemporary letters are horribly bad - the 63 year old administrative assistant in North Carolina wrote an interesting letter about the end of her affair with a man who appeared not to know what he wanted - she's no Sylvia Plath, but her letter was not filled with variations of the F word, and did not involved the immature, unclever put downs and vengeful-ness of some of the 20 year olds featured in this book. Perhaps that's the key -age brings with it maturity - or perhaps real talent does, as the letter from a 16 year old Anne Sexton or the letter from a 19-20 year old Sylvia Plath reads as more mature than some recent letters from women in their late 20's, 30's and older. Or perhaps the difference is that society has changed - it seems more acceptable today to express yourself like a foul mouthed harridan than in yesteryear. Please don't mistake my criticism of these letters for the notion that women should not express their anger and their feelings. They most certainly should. I would just prefer they express it in a mature, creative, clever way, if I am going to pay money to read about it. Since there seem to be more 'historical' letters than 'contemporary' letters, I still recommend this book to women who want to read how others coped with the end of their affairs. And I would caution readers that if they are reading this book for ideas to use in their own letters, they might want to follow better examples than Tanya of the Methadone Clinic.

This book is simply a lot of fun to flip through. It's a neat way to see a different side of famous figures, ranging from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to George Sand to Dorothy Sayers to Anne Boleyn, Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Bronte... I was impressed with the sheer range of figures represented. It's an addictive read.

While some of the letters in this book are disturbing and intense, I disagree with the reviewer who says that the book is sickening. There are many loving letters as well as cruel ones, and the loving ones WAY outnumber the cruel ones. And the arrangement of the letters in the book is proof that we all react to breakups differently...some more maturely than others.

This is the first novel by Francine Prose I've read, and I'm anxious to read more. What I admire most about the story is the way she captures the dynamics of a creative writing class and also the empathy she feels for her main character, an obviously weak, and sometimes pathetic figure. The examples of student writing are right on the mark, as are many of the characterizations of both student and faculty. However, the last scene rings hollow and false, and it feels like a quick patch job to get the book over with. While the book does get at the complexity of sexual harassment, it doesn't really provide us with any insights into why this student (Angela Argo) acts the way she does. It's well worth reading, but I wish the ending seemed more authentic.

**First off, what did you like about Francine's novel?**

BLUE ANGEL is written with the kind of enviable skill and grace that makes really good writing seem effortless and frustrates the hell out of anyone who sits down at his computer and tries to do better. The characters are so believable that you devour the novel, desperate to know what happens to each of them, and later you discover that you cannot quite separate the experiences of Swenson's creative writing class from that similar one you took during YOUR sophomore year in college... Anywhere you look in the world of academia, you're going to see something or experience something that is skillfully and sometimes hilariously satirized in this book. The novel's resolution is not really a resolution at all, and the author's willingness to leave it that way gives her story remarkable power.

**Okay, what could Francine do to improve her work?**

There's only one reason this novel gets four stars and not five, and that's Prose's painfully obvious political agenda. I haven't read any of her other books (yet) but I'm told that others contain the same headline hostility toward the feminist movement that permeates BLUE ANGEL. It must be allowed, however, that everyone who writes has agendas and prejudices, and writing about them does a sort of public service by getting them out in the open for discussion. Beyond this, Prose isn't annoying about it (even if she is obvious) and she's written a satire here, people, so cut her a little bit of slack to make fun of whomever she wants. Admit it, the whole thing is almost shockingly funny and (mostly) right on the mark.

**Anyone else have anything to say? Anyone? I guess we're done for the day then. Oh wait, Francine? Did you want to say something?**

this was my first francine prose novel. i must say i really enjoyed it. crackling writing, poignant moments, crisp characters. given the topics: modern academia, political correctness, and careening life transitions for both young and old, i'm not expecting or desiring labored psychological narrative, mann-like description, or plots that would make dickens weep in confusion. i simply want an enjoyable, thoughtful, literary novel. and that is what the reader receives with blue angel. i recommend it without reservation.

as an aside, if you've read other reviews you'll note the frustration expressed by readers regarding the author's choice not to explore the novel's 'why's?', to extensively explore why a character does or does not do something, motivation, etc.

Hello! there is no third voice narrator providing an all knowing, all seeing guidebook for the reader. the novel is entirely speaking from the point of view of the main character, Swenson. the reflection regarding events and emotions are all his or his speculations on others experience. his alternating brillant insight, haplessness, and cluelessness is what makes him so infuriating and sympathetic. the best novel i've ever read of a mid-age american man trying to just get through, terrible flaws and all, is joyce carol oates' 'what i lived for' (which was so substantial that it should have won the pulitzer or national book award that year). anyway, read on and enjoy!

This book contains two novellas. The first is a well-crafted study of how charismatic individuals spin history for personal gain, be it social/sexual or material. The fact that the Holocaust is the history being spun is timely and fascinating.

The second is a full length novel that has been unfairly savaged by previous reviewers for being formless, with "thin" characters, unattractive "pathetic" main character etc. etc. Anyone's entitled to his opinion, but I believe these reviewers missed the point. This is an existential story written from the perspective of a woman who is neurotically obsessed with her (older) lover. I think it's brilliantly done. Certainly we know lots of OTHER people who have been in such relationships. Do all romantic heroines have to be heroically self-assertive? What a depressingly narrow range of reader tastes if that is the case! Nina's musings as she flounders in the emotional vortex of her obsessive love for Leo are fascinating and generally close to the mark. Her character is 'thin' because love-obsessed persons are self-absorbed and have a constricted range of expression. That Prose "made Paris boring" is not a criticism, but high praise! The embarassingly simple point is that even the most attractive environment will be sterile and dully malevolent when filtered through the opaque lens of emotional dependency.

I read these two novellas before I saw the other reviews here on Amazon, and its a good thing. It would have been a real shame to have been discouraged or influenced by some of the negative comments. Ms. Prose's voice is unique, her stories well structured and interesting, her characters human. I don't want to spoil these stories for anyone who has yet to read them, so I won't go into the details of the plots. This is the second book by Ms. Prose I have read (Hunters and Gatherers was first) and I am pleased to have discovered her. Paris in the winter can be a gray place, but it is still Paris. Enough said. If you enjoy well crafted, serious fiction you will enjoy these stories (how is that for a loaded sentence?)

Guided Tours of Hell is a winner. Prose's character exposition through the limited but insightful internal monologues is witty and poignant. She delivers the characters in less than ten pages and develops them in the remaining sixty. It was difficult at times for me to know whether the attraction to this book was its delectable prose or the reflection of some of my own character flaws. The sensitivity of the story's background heightens the tension built by their petty interactions. While most times I just wanted to sympathise with the characters, the truth is, I could actually empathize.

Once again, Francine Prose boldly goes where others have gone before. Elizabeth Hand, Anne Rice, Mary McGarry Morris and about a zillion other authors have already approached this "women aren't morally perfect, men aren't all bad" thing, and have done it more successfully.

Prose seems to be a writer unwilling to take serious risks. I mean, in this one, she mocks the New Age (presenting, in the process, a really distorted and ignorant view of Goddess-worshippers). Wow, really going out on a limb there. In her newest, she mocks college professors who have weird ideas (again, it's been done before by other writers). Consistently she simply asserts the most commonly-held views, the most conventional sort of wisdom. Does she have any original ideas at all? Making fun of people who are different from the mainstream, or who are different from most literary critics and New York editors, is the easiest thing anyone can do. And there will *always* be major critics who will applaud a book like this, simply because the book upholds their own conventional attitudes; by attacking those who think more freely, the book makes the critics feel validated.

For a really original, chance-taking novel, I recommend MARIETTE IN ECSTASY by Ron Hansen.

"Hunters and Gatherers" is in fact a very funny way of answering a basic question: what happens if the ideas we believe in obscure our judgment, and become a prism through which everything is evaluated, and instead of being a simple flavor of life, as any opinions are, become *the* way of life. Any ideas one believes in are harmless, as long as we do not reach the point of no return, and as long as we do not stop thinking. This novel should be a must-read for all parents whose children are prone to identifying themselves with various sects, New Age in particular. Read it before it's not too late.

Francine Prose's "Hunters and Gatherers" is a honey for the caveman's heart. New Age and feminism take a severe beating in the novel. However, I looked around to spy a little on what else Francine Prose has written, and I was glad to see that in a way she specializes in humorous critiques of the modern-day absurdities of all types. Indeed, Prose has no mercy and ridicules the close-mindedness of the true believers of The Goddess, very adequately portraying the cosmic absurd of the malevore ways in general.

What's more, it is also an insight into the sects, much like John Updike's "In the Beauty of the Lilies". I was bored to tears with that last one, although I have to give Updike that he portrayed the sects and mentality of the victims quite well. "Hunters and Gatherers" sometimes raises the hair on our neck. Is it really that easy to fall prey to the New Age sect? What kind of character must one have to become a victim? If the special circumstances arise, all it takes to lose a child is a coincidence, or a minor incident, and bang, we may never see our daughter again. As comic as this book is, it is also dead serious in the background. There is no shortage of charlatans out there, and equally enough, there is no shortage of emotionally unstable people, let alone teenagers. If you have problems with your child, perhaps this book will wake you up, and throw the scales off your eyes. If you do that in time...

Prose is very witty and observant, and I enjoyed the book throughout, but her writing lacks that universal touch a bit, which really disappointed me. Does it sound contradictory? It really isn't. "Hunters and Gatherers" is a thoroughly enjoyable book, in harmony with my own outlook on the malevore trends, but still, I doubt I will ever come back to this book. Why? I know the story, I had my laugh or two, but there isn't much more to this novel. Perhaps because I knew all this already... Nevertheless, this should not discourage you from reading the novel. If you haven't read any book of this type, you'll love this.

In _Hunters and Gatherers_ Francine Prose cuts through the P.C. thoughtglut of mindless contemporary feminism, much in the way an "I Was Jimmy Swaggart's Girlfriend" tell-all might expose the hypocrisies of televangelism. Goddess worshippers are no more likely than Christians to be opportunistic moneygrubbers; but then, no less likely either.

Martha's embracing of the strange (to her), new religion and subsequent disillusion with it demonstates that those who go looking for Truth in the form of other fallible human beings might as well be turning their backs on the high tide at Fire Island.

Of course, I wasn't looking for a moral when I picked up H&G, but a darn good yarn. Francine Prose hasn't let me down yet. After reading this, I went on to read everything of hers I could get my hands on.

Disgruntled leftovers from NOW's salad days won't appreciate this book. As a woman who never felt the so-called Women's Movement represented or included me, I found _Hunters and Gatherers_ incisive, enlightening and entertaining. Go, Francine--and cool last name, too!

In the book, as in many of her other works, Francine Prose has a gift for evocative description. She nails the feel of a restaurant, or a room, a coat, a meal, etc. It is easy to picture the characters, and translate them to real life. They could easily exist, and are generally amalgams of people one already knows. The society and the culture she describes in this book, she knows, and faithfully depicts. There are universal feelings that the main characters have and describe that she conveys so eloquently that I found myself actively thinking "Wow, I'm impressed."

However, despite her great skill as a writer, I found the book only lukewarm on the enjoyability scale. She may write real and vivid characters, but I didn't really care too much about them. And sadly, I felt like she didn't either. It seemed to lack heart. Passion. This book doesn't quite go the distance, and although it is not a bad read it packs no real punch.