{"id":576,"date":"2018-12-31T12:54:32","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T12:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=576"},"modified":"2018-12-31T12:54:32","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T12:54:32","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=576","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, <\/span>freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, <\/span>and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/span>FICTION<\/p>\n

Anton DiSclafani<\/span><\/p>\n

The After Party<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Riverhead Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-5946-3316-4 (also available as an ebook, an audio book, and on Audible), 384 pgs., $26.00<\/p>\n

May 17, 2016<\/p>\n

Joan \u201cthe jewel\u201d Fortier, \u201cHouston\u2019s most famous socialite,\u201d<\/span> is twenty-five years old in 1957. She\u2019s always chafed against restrictions imposed by her inherited position in society, but her behavior is increasingly erratic. Cece Buchanan, Joan\u2019s best friend since before they can remember, believes it her \u201cjob to protect her [Joan] from herself,\u201d to persuade Joan to behave, to \u201cfall-in.\u201d But Joan will not be tamed: keeping secrets, keeping company with strange men, disappearing from her family and friends; when she\u2019s present, her state is clearly chemically altered.<\/p>\n

Cece is hurt by Joan\u2019s withdrawal and obsessed with whatever Joan is up to. When this fixation begins to threaten Cece\u2019s marriage, she must choose. Cece, who observes that \u201cmost unhappy people \u2026 wanted contradictory things,\u201d is torn between the comfortable, known world of her husband and son, and \u201cthe great big world of the night\u201d that Joan represents.<\/p>\n

The After Party,<\/span> Anton DiSclafani\u2019s<\/span> second novel, set in the Houston neighborhood of River Oaks (where the houses have names and there\u2019s enough alcohol to fill the swimming pools), follows the fateful events of a single summer in the lives of a clique of debutantes and illustrates the consequences of violating the stultifying conventions of a rigid society. Making liberal use of flashbacks, the story is told in first person by Cece (the \u201cyawn\u201d), revealing the history of a friendship. Cece has been spared obscurity amid the brighter lights of these debutantes by her association with Joan, the sun to Cece\u2019s moon.<\/p>\n

The After Party\u2019s narrative is brisk and compelling, but the plot is time-worn. While the novel makes for a pleasant diversion, DiSclafani\u2019s writing is not particularly powerful. However, her ability to invoke a historical atmosphere and era is effective. The foreshadowing can be heavy-handed, but it does keep the pages turning. The constant talk of money, clothes, and position eventually becomes tiresome. But ultimately none of these things are the point. The centerpiece of The After Party is the complicated friendship between Cece and Joan, two complex and vividly drawn characters.<\/p>\n

DiSclafani\u2019s cast are not particularly sympathetic, but they\u2019re intriguing in a bug-under-glass manner. The dichotomy is that, while these characters seem to be strikingly shallow at first glance, it\u2019s not the individual characters that are shallow, but rather that the society they live in imposes it on them as a condition of acceptance. \u201cI wished [Joan] could see how mentioning the articles<\/span> she read,\u201d Cece thinks, \u201cthe places she wanted to go\u2014all the ways in which we were not enough\u2014won her no favors among us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cece opens a voyeur\u2019s window into this rarefied world, but the view disappoints. It glitters\u2014but this gossipy Junior League set are provincial faux sophisticates forever engaged in spiteful, envious competition (\u201cSometimes it was exhausting, remembering all the ways we measured each other. The ruler was long and precise.\u201d)\u2014big fish in a small pond. In the end, the secrets hidden by the HOA-regulation-height hedges are truly shocking and the final page is just right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}