Book
Reviews
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times
Archives |
|||
|
When the
Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
|
||
|
Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|
||
|
|
|||
|
Moves Elmore Leonard writes with mastery in his
new short story collection, When the
Women Come Out to Dance. Readers demand a lot from Leonard, and he
delivers consistently. Here’s an excerpt (pp. 24-5) from the title story: Sitting out here in the evening several times a
week when the doctor didn't come home, Mrs. Mahmood trying hard to make it
seem they were friends, Mrs. Mahmood serving daiquiris in round crystal
goblets, waiting on her personal maid. It was nice to be treated this way and
it would continue, Lourdes believed, until Mrs. Mahmood finally came out and
said what was on her mind, what she wanted Lourdes to do for her. The work was nothing, keep the woman's clothes in
order, water the houseplants, fix lunch for herself—and the maids, once they
came in the kitchen sniffing her spicy seafood dishes. Lourdes had no trouble
talking to them. They looked right at her face telling her things. Why they
avoided Dr. Mahmood. Because he would ask very personal questions about their
sexual lives. Why they thought Mrs. Mahmood was crazy. Because of the way she
danced in just her underwear. And in the evening the woman of the house would
tell Lourdes of being bored with her life, not able to invite her friends in
because Woz didn't approve of them. "What do I do? I hang out. I listen to music.
I discuss soap operas with the gook maids. Melda stops me. ‘Oh, missus, come
quick.' They're in the laundry room watching As the World Turns.
She goes, ‘Dick follows Nikki to where she is to meet Ryder, and it look like
he was going to hurt her. But Ryder came there in time to save Nikki from a
violent Dick.' " Mrs. Mahmood would tell a story like that and look
at her without
an expression on her face, waiting for Lourdes tosmile or laugh. But what was
funny about the story? "What do I do?" was the question she asked
most. "I exist, I have no life." "You
go shopping." "Thats all." "You play golf." "You've gotta be kidding." "You go out with your husband." "To an Indian restaurant and I listen to him
talk to the manager. How many times since you've been here has he come home
in the evening? He has a girlfriend," the good-looking redheaded woman
said. "He’s with her all the time. Her or another one, and doesn't care
that I know. He’s rubbing it in my face. All guys fool around at least once
in a while. Woz and his buddies live for it. It’s accepted over there, where
they're from. A guy gets tired of his wife in Pakistan? He burns her to
death. Or has it done. I'm not kidding, he tells everyone her dupatta
caught fire from the stove." Lourdes
said, "Ah, that’s why you don't cook." "Among other reasons. Woz’s from Rawalpindi, a
town where forty women a month show up at the hospital with terrible
burns. If the woman survives . . . Are you listening to me?" Lourdes was sipping her daiquiri. "Yes, of
course." "If she doesn't die, she lives in shame
because her husband, this prick who tried to burn her to death, kicked her
out of the fucking house. And he gets away with it. Pakistan, India,
thousands of women are burned every year 'cause their husbands are tired of
them, or they didn't come up with a big enough dowry." The usual rawness that Leonard captures
appears in each story. There’s never a mis-spoken word, and when you finish
reading When
the Women Come Out to Dance, you’ll want to start over again. Steve Hopkins, February 27, 2002 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the March 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/When
the Women Come Out to Dance.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
