Five Women

Five women who have survived their troubled pasts meet regularly at the Yellowbird restaurant-bar and relate the story of their lives, friendships, and betrayals while also becoming friends and allies and betrayers of one another.

Plot is not a crucial element in this latest from the prolific Jaffe (The Cousins, 1995, etc.). Here, an exploration of five women's lives is light on action, heavy on melodrama. Every so often four friends--psychologist Gara Whiteman; attorney Felicity Johnson; twice-divorced, former suburban housewife Kathryn Henry; and minor-league actress Eve Bader-- convene at Yellowbird, an Upper East Side restaurant/bar owned by onetime singing sensation and native Texan Billie Redmond. Each of the women has traveled a rocky path on her way to upper-middle- class (or higher) life in Manhattan; with the semi-regular meetings at Yellowbird the only device holding their stories together, each reveals her past, describes her present miseries and misfortunes, and, ultimately, moves on to a better and brighter future--thanks to a little (but not enough to connect the five stories adequately) help from their friends. Gara's longtime husband leaves her for another, much younger woman, and Gara is diagnosed with breast cancer. Felicity's husband is abusive--and her lover isn't much better. Kathryn is running from the many people who've hurt her in the past, including her alcoholic father and two undesirable husbands. And Eve, who's never made it big in Hollywood or on Broadway, is struggling with a daughter who's a star on screen and stage. In the meantime, Billie, after a series of hard knocks, has built Yellowbird into a success. Idiosyncratic as ever, she brings her young son to the bar every night, where's he's doted on by the patrons, including two transvestite regulars. More a series of character sketches than a novel, though the story nonetheless manages to charm, thanks to Jaffe's lively, distinctly drawn protagonists. (Literary Guild featured alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Jaffe, author of 14 novels, including The Cousins (1995), has got it down to a science: she designs a group of formulaically diverse women who, over wine and salads, recall the traumas of their past while negotiating the trials of the present. In this long, lulling mind-commute of a novel, four women friends meet regularly at a hip hangout called Yellowbird, a "monument to Janis Joplin," which is owned and run by the fifth woman of the title, Billie, a husky voiced loner who tells folks that she could have been like Janis. They wonder how; it doesn't seem possible that she could ever have been a singer. She was, of course, but what she means is that she could have died young, like her idol. But she survived and got her life back on track. Sigh. And that's only one melodramatic story out of five: there's Gara, the divorced psychologist; Kathryn, the rich and cheery gal with a bloody family history; Eve, the mediocre actress who likes to tie up men; and Felicity, the lawyer with a bullying husband and a fickle lover. There are no small moments here, no ordinary events; it's all domestic violence, psychosis, adultery, abandonment, even murder. But, hey, that's what the readers who make best-sellers sell best want, and Jaffe, at least, writes with polish and momentum. Donna Seaman

Jaffe again delves into the lives and relationships of a select group of American women. She started down this road with The Best of Everything (1958), in which she detailed the experiences of young working women in New York City. Fourteen novels later, in this same city, we encounter a group of mid-life friends: Gara, a divorced psychologist and cancer survivor; beautiful black attorney Felicity, married to a rich but controlling man; Kathryn, haunted by the brutality of her parents' marriage; the unabashedly narcissistic actress, Eve; and former rock star Billie, owner of the bar where they meet weekly. Scrutiny into their pasts and presents offers lively if predictable reading. Jaffe's fans will be looking for this title in their public libraries.?Sheila M. Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.