Primitive People - Hardcover

Prose, Francine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374237220 ISBN 13: 9780374237226

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1992

Synopsis

The au pair for the Porter family, Haitian-born Simone, becomes witness to the family's casual cruelty, observing the activities of Rosemary, a sculptor, her philandering husband, her mercurial friends, and her strange children

About this title

Reviews

Having acquired an audience of discerning readers with such novels as Household Saints and Bigfoot Dreams , Prose comes into her own with this acerbic comedy of manners. Both deliciously wicked and poignant, it is a fable of our times. Through the eyes of her protagonist Simone, an illegal immigrant from Haiti who becomes a "caregiver" to the children of unforgivably self-absorbed parents, Prose illuminates some of the ludicrous aspects of our culture and of the perennial battle between the sexes. Morbidly depressed 10-year-old George and six-year-old sister Maisie are the casualties of their parents' failed marriage. Their brittle, bubblehead mother Rosemary, a sculptress of absolutely no talent, has been abandoned and left nearly penniless by their father, charismatic womanizer Geoffrey, and she is pathetically trying to cope with life in the derelict Porter family mansion in upstate New York. Although she is bewildered by American culture, Simone becomes the one stable element in the household, winning the children's trust and Rosemary's patronizing affection. As she meets Geoffrey, Rosemary's friends and other members of the community, Simone sees dark links between her violence-haunted homeland and the outwardly serene community of Hudson ' s Landing. Observing the complex betrayals of which the children are ultimate victims, Simone is herself betrayed by her need for emotional connection. Prose has a ventriloquist's skill in capturing contemporary jargon and a laser eye for describing the people who spout it. She offers hilarious sendups of mall culture and of pretentious, empty socialites, seen here in a stable at the wedding of a bovine WASP heiress and a Sufi homeopath veterinarian. But most potently, she ironically contrasts the "primitive" aspects of Haitian society, including voodoo sacrifice, with the unconscious cruelty of upper-class parents whose treatment of two innocent children verges on the barbarous. The beautifully sustained, satiric tone of the novel darkens as Prose fashions a credible, bleak ending for her cautionary tale.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Prose's seventh novel (Bigfoot Dreams, 1986, etc.) inspires many a giggle as it relates the odd and fascinating adventures of a Haitian au pair in an eccentric upper-class Hudson Valley household--social satire at its slyest and best. Shy, beautiful Simone of Port-au-Prince had no choice but to leave Haiti when she did--not only had the government fallen, but, more devastatingly, Simone's artist lover had dumped her for her best friend and Simone couldn't face the humiliation. Quitting her job as chief assistant to the US cultural attach‚, Simone buys a fake green card and an illegal US marriage certificate, flies to New York, and winds up a few days later in the very bohemian household of Rosemary Porter. Rosemary, a wiry-haired sculptor of fertility objects, self-obsessed mother of two morbid children, and estranged, middle-aged wife of wealthy Geoffrey Porter of an influential Hudson Valley family, takes to Simone instantly, no questions asked--giving her a tour of Geoffrey's crumbling, chaotic mansion (from which they might be evicted at any moment) and introducing her to young George and Maisie (``All you have to do is make sure the kids don't kill each other...and cheer them up! I don't care how. Lift their little spirits somehow!''). Not surprisingly, Simone soon finds herself identifying more with her shell-shocked charges than with their wildly irrational elders. She huddles with George and Maisie around the Porters' massive kitchen table, wolfing down red beans, rice, and fried plantains while fending off casual references to ``primitive'' Haiti and trying to make sense of a world in which philandering fathers, dithering mothers, double-crossing best friends, suburban witches, and the homicidal Count next door hold the fate of innocents in their unsteady hands. As always, Prose's wit sparkles. Another winner by a writer who has hit her stride. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Simone is an illegal immigrant from Haiti, working as an au pair for a family in upstate New York. There, she learns about American life from the shallow, self-centered "primitive people" around her: her employer Rosemary, who is camping out with her withdrawn children in the ancestral home of her estranged husband; Rosemary's brittle and caustic best friend Shelly, an interior decorator; and Shelly's narcissistic, sexually ambiguous boyfriend Kenny, who owns a children's hair salon. In Simone's adjustment to her new life, Prose's latest novel is reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy ( LJ 11/1/90), while its biting satire and anti-male attitude recall Fay Weldon. Although this book is entertaining to read, it doesn't have enough substance or sympathetic characters to be totally successful. Prose's talent for skewering the pretensions of contemporary life is shown to better advantage in her short story collection Women and Children First ( LJ 3/1/88).
- Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374237220
• ISBN 13: 9780374237226
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 227