Paperback picks for March 22, 1991
CROSSING THE RIVER Fenton Johnson
Martha Bragg Pickett, the tenacious heroine of Johnson's first novel (1989), is so real she makes the steel magnolias of most Southern novels seem wan
and wilted. Johnson's Kentucky is equally fresh — and he never
overdoes the quaintness. A-
BARBARIANS AT THE GATE: THE RISE OF RJR NABISCO Bryan Burrough and
John Helyar
The story of the Nabisco
takeover — the biggest in Wall Street history — is the basis for the best
of the big-deal books. Even more than Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the
Vanities, this 1990 nonfiction best-seller captures '80s avarice in all its glory. Cagey characters, punchy writing, a plot with a beat — you don't have to be a business type to understand how this
cookie crumbled. A
JULIAN'S HOUSE Judith Hawkes
Curl up; this is something you've been waiting for — an intelligent page turner. Hawkes' 1989 tale of a young couple and the house that haunts them is so
engaging that you never question the ghostly goings-on. If ghosts exist, this must be how they behave. A-
BURN MARKS Sara Paretsky
Paretsky's flinty, rueful
private eye, V.I. Warshawski, has grown more flesh-and-bloodily
complex with each of her no-nonsense investigations into insurance
scams and municipal cover-ups. In 1990's Burn Marks, her sixth
outing, she proves once again irascibly irresistible as family ties
pull her into an ugly arson and murder case. A-
BECAUSE IT IS BITTER, AND BECAUSE IT IS MY HEART Joyce Carol Oates
Oates — possibly the finest realistic novelist of her generation — is at the peak of her remarkable powers in this 1990
novel. Set in the black and white communities of a decaying
industrial city in upstate New York in the late '50s and early '60s,
it is the story behind the death of ''Little Red'' Garlock, ''sixteen
years old, skull smashed soft as a rotted pumpkin and body dumped
into the Cassadaga River.'' A
