Do Unto Others - Hardcover

Lattany, Kristin Hunter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345407083 ISBN 13: 9780345407085

Publisher: One World/Ballantine, 2000

Synopsis

Zena (short for Zenobia) Lawson honors all things African--art, culture, history. So when fortune hands her a twenty-year-old Nigerian girl in need of temporary housing, of course Zena and her husband Lucius jump at the chance to help. To Zena, Ifa Olongo is an exotic beauty with enough haughtiness and grace for three royal families. Not to mention the daughter she never had. But as Zena's best friend Vy keeps reminding her, Ifa is no girl--she's a young woman with dangerous curves that any man would just love to skid his tires across.

But Zena, a former glamour queen herself, has problems distinguishing between glitter and real gold. For Ifa's name means life--and she'll acquire it . . . by any means necessary.

The ever-widening gap between Africans and African-Americans--and the strong but precarious link that bridges it . . . The unexpected peril of romanticizing our roots--and the foreigners who represent them . . . The importance of taking care of others--without sacrificing oneself . . . Kristin Hunter Lattany weaves these elements into a novel crackling with wit, intelligence, and mischief, and takes political correctness and Afrocentricity and turns them upside down.

About this title

About the Author

Kristin Hunter Lattany is the author of Kinfolks, Guests in the Promised Land, which was nominated for a National Book Award, The Landlord, which became a motion picture, and a bestselling young adult novel, The Soul Brothers & Sister Lou. She received the Moonstone Black Writing Celebration Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in New Jersey.

From the Inside Flap

for Zenobia) Lawson honors all things African--art, culture, history. So when fortune hands her a twenty-year-old Nigerian girl in need of temporary housing, of course Zena and her husband Lucius jump at the chance to help. To Zena, Ifa Olongo is an exotic beauty with enough haughtiness and grace for three royal families. Not to mention the daughter she never had. But as Zena's best friend Vy keeps reminding her, Ifa is no girl--she's a young woman with dangerous curves that any man would just love to skid his tires across.

But Zena, a former glamour queen herself, has problems distinguishing between glitter and real gold. For Ifa's name means life--and she'll acquire it . . . by any means necessary.

The ever-widening gap between Africans and African-Americans--and the strong but precarious link that bridges it . . . The unexpected peril of romanticizing our roots--and the foreigners who represent them . . . The importance of taking care of others--without sacrificing oneself

Reviews

"Be careful what you wish for" is the lesson learned by a proud, hard-working, beautician in Lattany's (Kinfolk) latest novel. Zenobia Lawson, 49, owns her own hair salon, specializing in African-American women's styles, cuts and colors; she is happily married to Lucius and is a kind of mother figure in her group of women friends, called "The Divas." Zena and her husband, Lucius, are Christians, and believe in the moral imperative to "do unto others," so when a 20-year-old African woman, Ifa Olongo, needs a home for three weeks while she's applying for a visa extension, the Lawsons are happy to take her in. Childless Zena is also excited to have "a daughter" and is thrilled by Ifa's regal beauty, innocence and charm. Quickly, though, complications arise: Zena gets sweet-talked into buying Ifa pricey designer clothes and ends up with an astronomical phone bill. Despite all her support of Ifa, Zena displays little understanding of cultural differences: she forces the offended Ifa to wear deodorant, and recoils when she sees that Ifa has transformed the pretty guest bedroom into a "voodoo hut," decorated with a python skin and "what appear to be a small pile of human bones." Tensions rise, and when Ifa gives Lucius a massage and does a sexy python dance, Zena is suspicious of her guest's proclaimed Christianity. But Lucius defends Ifa ( "It's not her fault her family taught her pagan beliefs"), and exhorts Zena to convert Ifa. Lucius and Ifa predictably end up sleeping together and Zena freaks out, demanding HIV tests for everybody. Lattany writes in a chatty first-person voice, but when Zena attempts to describe the complex differences between African immigrants and American blacks, only a superficial exploration ensues. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Winner of the Moonstone Black Writing Celebration Lifetime Achievement Award, Lattany explores the conflict between an African American couple and the young African woman they try to help.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: One World/Ballantine
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345407083
• ISBN 13: 9780345407085
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272