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Gail Godwin is justly praised for her evocative prose and her character-revealing dialogue. Her many excellent novels include the best-selling A Mother and Two Daughters, Father Melancholy's Daughter and Evensong.
Godwin's new novel, Queen of the Underworld, set in Miami circa 1959, captures a city dramatically changing as upper-class Cuban exiles fleeing Fidel Castro are flooding in.
But as a reading experience, the book can only be described as frustrating and annoying.
Elements are based on Godwin's experience as a young reporter working at The Miami Herald right after graduation from the University of North Carolina.
The novel's protagonist is Emma Gant. Deeply ambitious, talented and driven, Emma sees herself winning Pulitzer Prizes for her journalism while writing brilliant novels. She also enchants every man within eyeshot of her slim figure and blond hair.
Emma has no intention of getting trapped in the traditional ghetto of the women's section with its soft features or in a Florida bureau. (While at The Miami Herald's Fort Lauderdale bureau, Godwin was fired by Al Neuharth, who eventually founded USA TODAY. She described the experience in her new non-fiction book, Gail Godwin: The Making of a Writer, Journals: 1961-1963.)
Jane Austen created the original Emma, a headstrong heroine with an ego the size of the pyramids. This Emma clearly enchants her creator, Gail Godwin, but readers swiftly tire of Emma's ceaseless railing against the cruel fates that force a cub reporter to write obits instead of front-page exposes during her first week on the job. She also appears to feel little guilt for her affair with a married man.
When Godwin moves her loving gaze from Emma's blond ambition, the story picks up. Godwin describes the situation of the formerly rich and powerful Cubans now exiled in Miami, as well as the tale of a former Mob queen. Emma becomes obsessed with this woman's story, seeing it somehow as her own story. Unfortunately, the novel is mostly Emma's self-absorbed rantings.
Queen of the Underworld
By Gail Godwin
Random House, 336 pp., $24.95
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