A Review of Black and White by Dani Shapiro

What if the one person who is supposed to protect you against the world is the one who exploits you? That is the topic in Black and White, a novel about Clara Dunne, whose mother is Ruth Dunne, a world-famous photographer. Clara was Ruth's muse, her favorite subject for photography, and Ruth always photographed her in the nude. The story is told from Clara's point of view, now an adult with a daughter of her own. She ran away from her home in New York City at age 18, and never looked back. Living in Maine with her artist husband, Clara is contacted by her older sister, Robin, when Ruth's failing health reaches the point of no return. Clara is forced to face her past, face having been exploited by her mother, face Robin, perpetually angry at having been ignored by their mother, and face the fact that her mother's fame outshines any notion of how the "Clara Series" affected it's subject.
Ruth is seen as the ultimate artiste, beautiful, talented, brilliant even, in her depictions of Clara. From the age of three, Clara is photographed naked in all sorts of ways- Clara With The Lizard was the beginning, a photograph of Clara in the bathtub with a plastic lizard in her mouth, one leg up on the side of the tub, "splayed open" for all to see. It ended with "Clara at Age 14", at which point Clara makes sure her mother will no longer photograph her.
This story is a raw, emotional one. Clara as an adult is not in touch with any emotions of her past. She focuses solely on the present; her marriage, daughter and life on a remote island off the coast of Maine. When she does finally see Ruth again, Ruth is still the elitist, the snobby artist surrounded by sycophants who only value her for her work.
I did enjoy this story very much. It unravels perfectly, bits of information about the past doled out piece by piece. It subtly hits the same question over and over: Does Ruth deserve forgiveness? It isn't only Clara who needs to forgive; Robin has also been damaged as her mother ignored her completely in favor of her work, which just happened to be Clara. The one thing that bothered me about the story was Ruth herself. While she is not one-dimensional as a character, she comes off as very self-involved as well as unapologetic, and since she is dying, does not really evolve much as a character. So-called 'villians' should not be truly one-dimensional; they rarely are in real life.
In all, this was an emotionally moving, well told story. I felt for the characters, as flawed as they all were. I would be interested in reading more by this author.

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A Review of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fanny Flagg

I have seen the movie Fried Green Tomatoes multiple times and have enjoyed it quite a bit. So I decided to read the book because I was curious if I would enjoy it as well. I have read several other books by Ms. Flagg, and have enjoyed her writing style and stories of Southern life and the women who live there. This book was no exception.
The story takes place in two different time periods: the 1980's, with the story of Ninny Threadgoode, an 86-year-old living in a Birmingham, Alabama nursing home and her interactions with Evelyn Couch, a 48-year-old dissatisfied housewife. Cleo shares with Evelyn her memories of Ruth Jamison and Idgie Threadgoode (Ninny's sister-in-law), who lived in the 1920's-30's in Whistle Stop Alabama.
Both stories take their turns detailing the lives of the individual women, and the two separate friendships. Evelyn visits the nursing home with her husband to visit his mother, and she winds up spending a good deal of time with Ninny. Evelyn sees her as a nuisance in the beginning, but eventually comes to depend on Ninny for her rough charm and common sense. Evelyn is suffering from menopause-induced mid-life crisis. She feels useless and helpless, confused by the world around her and her lack of connection with it. Ninny needs a friend, and an ear to listen to her tales. And so these two women become erstwhile friends, much as the other two women whose tales are spun by Ninny, became friends earlier in the century.
It appears that Ruth and Idgie have a relationship that borders on romantic, as both act as though they love each other as more than just friends. Their friendship includes raising a child, one that Ruth has had by her husband, Frank Bennett, whom she left after being unable to endure any more of his beatings. He appears later in the story as well, and is part of the mystery that is present here.
This story is well-written and engaging, the characters and narrative the driving force. Neither story is more or less engaging than the other, and while I often get frustrated with books that switch back and forth because I am more invested in one story line than the other, that did not happen here. I was just as interested in what was going on with Ninny and Evelyn as I was with Idgie and Ruth. Both stories were both funny and heartbreaking, as Evelyn battles her feelings of helplessness by acting in ways that we have all imagined but never have actually done, for fear of the consequences. For example, when a young girl "steals" a parking space Evelyn was waiting for and then sasses Evelyn when she calls her on it, Evelyn decides to get even. She slams into the parked VW bug with her big boat of a car until it's no more than junk. Her character definitely is the most evolved throughout the story, and the one with the happiest ending. The others have their own endings, as such, some happier than others. In all, I enjoyed spending time in Alabama with Fanny Flagg's iconic characters. The book was just as wonderful as the movie.