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Karen E Quinones Miller
Simon & Schuster / 256 pages
ISBN 0-7432-4614-4
Fiction with a Hint
of Reality
Ę
Perhaps it’s Karen Quinones Miller solid
background as a journalist that makes her such a talented, yet controversial
fiction writer. For Quinones-Miller, who worked as a reporter for the
Philadelphia Inquirer before making the often perfidious leap from
newshound to celebrated novelist a few years ago, writing books about
unpleasant topics or equally despicable people, seem to evoke her best
literary talents.
Her last book, I’m Telling, explored the taboo
topic and the “let’s ignore it and it will go away,” issue of childhood
sexual abuse in a family. Her latest book, Using What You Got,
explores the all too familiar topic about a desperate woman in search of a
man, but with a slightly different spin. Tiara Bynum is a pouty, spoiled
Prima Donna and daddy’s girl. Pretty by some standards and utterly
pretentious by most, Tiara is an 18-year-old wanna be diva, who, to put it
bluntly, will get on your nerves from the very beginning of the book. As it
turns out, her snotty attitude and elitist air was developed and honed by
her dimwitted daddy-Reggie. A former numbers runner, who is supposedly
reformed and now gainfully employed as a garbage man, daddy simply worships
his two daughters-Tiara and her baby sister Jo-Jo. He dumped his wife long
ago. It’s not uncommon for papa Bynum to blow the rent or monthly light bill
money in order to buy an expensive case of Fashion Fair cosmetics or a Louis
Vuitton purse for his daughters-especially Tiara. Early on, readers are led
to believe that daddy is actively saving up his trash hauler paycheck in
order to move his girls from the New York City projects to a brownstone in
‘burbs. Shallow and painfully naive’ in an obnoxious sort of way, Tiara’s
primary goal in life is to meet and marry a rich man. Supposedly, she has
some intention of going to law school, but readers quickly get the sense
that meeting a sugar daddy is her only true aspiration. She does in fact
meet men-plenty of men. But it is only one---Lionel--- who meets and exceeds
all of her expectations---but as we later learn-the brotha’ has some deep
and very dark secrets that threaten to destroy her idyllic world.
For Quinones-Miller, Using What You Got is
remotely similar to her freshmen novel a few years ago, entitled, Satin
Doll. In the book she also introduced readers to a woman---Regina
Harris---with an all too-familiar hard luck story of woe and
despair---broke, jobless, and depressed and desperate to meet a man to take
of her needs both inside and outside of the bedroom. She eventually meets a
man who is from a ritzy, albeit-snooty upper-class family that readily
abhors her “ghetto fabulous” ways. In both books, only a modicum of sympathy
or compassion is felt for the main characters. In Using What You Got,
it’s Quinones-Miller’s raw and overly abundant dialogue between the
characters that saves the novel from becoming yet just another story about
some a woman who meets and falls in love with the wrong man. In one
scene, Tiara dismisses an interested suitor because he doesn’t meet her
lofty expectations. The author writes, “Good, because my feet hurt,” Tiara
grumbled, her mood darkened because of the conversation during the
four-block walk. It was obvious to her that Rashad was jealous because she
was going to be a lawyer and he was nothing but a cab driver, but she was
damned if he was going to make her feel bad. Sh-t, if he had any sense he
should be trying to hook up with her so he could have a lawyer for a wife.
The boy obviously didn’t have the brains he was born with.” Throughout the
book, readers will find similar “superior than thou” comments from
Tiara---an immediate turnoff and readers will quickly surmise that whatever
happens to her, in the end she gets what she deserves.
Finally, Quinones-Miller's writing always seems to
have a certain latent journalistic savviness to it. It's present in all
three of her novels. Perhaps in her days as a print reporter she covered a
story about childhood sexual abuse or interviewed a woman like Regina Harris
and Tiara Bynum. It’s this hint of reality that makes a Karen
Quinones-Miller book a compelling read.
Glenn Townes
is an award-winning New Jersey-based journalist and frequent
contributor to numerous national publications. Glenn was recently appointed
to Professional Advisory Board at his alma mater, the University of Iowa
School of Journalism for his outstanding contributions to the field. |
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