Whitegirl

Rating:
Summary: One Great Read
Review: A terrific page-turner. You simply won't be able to put it down. This is a beautiful, complicated love story between two beautiful, complicated people, Milo the black Olympic skier and Charlotte the gorgeous blonde model, whose lives are even more complicated by the explosive racial politics in which any black-white marriage in this country has to survive. Or not. Manning's novel is frequently just plain funny -- she's a very witty writer -- but it's deft as well. The tale is conveyed by a narrator whose intellectual capacities are, well, limited (she's a blonde model, after all), and that's rather tricky. Manning succeeds in that difficult writerly endeavor. She also succeeds in navigating the treacherous shoals of race in America -- and shows how, with even the best intentions, her protagonists get shipwrecked there. A lovely and important book.

Rating:
Summary: From One Who Has Been There
Review: First, ignore the comments from other reviewers about the parallels between this story and the OJ-Nicole Brown Simpson case. The person who wrote this book is too smart to think that a reader would fall for anything so transparent, dated and shabby.

Yes, this book is about a white woman and a black man. But it is really about two people whose inner lives and outward circumstances are in conflict. (By the way, that has been a fine premise for any number of great books.) These two people fall in love, drawn together by their similarities, and then can't escape their irrevocable differences.

Charlotte Halsey grows up among conservative, religious Californians, and by her teens, she knows she wants no part of that life, so she lights out for the territories, which means going East to college. Milo Robicheaux is raised in an upper-middle-class black family in New England. As a gifted black man with sophisticated parents, he is expected to be anything but a world-class athlete.

Milo and Charlotte meet in college, do not connect, drift apart, and then re-connect in New York City, setting into motion the events that make the book memorable.

Charlotte is the center of this book; her psyche dominates the narrative. She is a beautiful, blond and outwardly very white. But she is rebellious, rambunctious, hard-drinking and, unlike most supermodels (which she turns out to be), anything but pouty and narcissistic. She is also wise, self-sufficient and athletic, in and out of the bedroom.

Milo is single-minded and driven to succeed, which he does as a skier and actor. He also is well-trained by his parents, who have schooled him in the art of succeeding in a white world, without becoming a pawn. Milo's head is turned, however, by the accusations from New York City's elite black community that being a prominent black in America and being apolitical, is a cop-out.

The story of Charlotte and Milo's courtship, wedding and marriage is told with crisp details that are at the same time touching and ominous. Even though the author lets you know at the beginning of the book that Charlotte nearly loses her life at the hands of an unknown intruder, this fact is only one of many that sustain this book. Whitegirl is for anyone who has lived and loved, and whose eyes are open to the complexities of race in America.

Rating:
Summary: depends on your expectations
Review: If you're reading this book as a comment on racism in our society or as a statement on trust in marriage, the book is good. If, however, you're reading the book as a whodunnit, the end's a bummer.

Rating:
Summary: A book to ponder
Review: Kate Manning tells the mesmerizing love story of Charlotte, a stunningly beautiful white woman from California, and Milo, a stunningly handsome black man from New Hampshire. They meet briefly in college and then years later in New York where she has become a famous model and he has become an internationally celebrated skier.

The author stays out of the way of Charlotte, the narrator, as the story unfolds. In the process we observe two rather shallow people who have relied on their beauty and successes to get through a day. When they marry, however, they each have to confront issues of race and identity and vanities and the power of wealth. We twist and turn with them to a most unexpected and absolutely brilliant ending.

It is a book that wants to (needs to) be reread, thought about, paid attention to. Thank you Kate Manning.

Rating:
Summary: Old Story, New Perspective
Review: Kate Manning's "White Girl" presents an age-old phenomenon from a new perspective. Black writers have long tackled the issue of interracial dating from either their personal experiences or those of people they know, but very few white writers have done the same. Manning's willingness to be one of the few is commendable. There are villains on both sides of the color spectrum and neither side is given much slack. Not being an African American man herself, she captures Milo's (the black male lead) inner-turmoil perfectly. This is a very fascinating read!

Rating:
Summary: Old Story, New Perspective
Review: Kate Manning's "White Girl" presents an age-old phenomenon from a new perspective. Black writers have long tackled the issue of interracial dating from either their personal experiences or those of people they know, but very few white writers have done the same. Manning's willingness to be one of the few is commendable. There are villains on both sides of the color spectrum and neither side is given much slack. Not being an African American man herself, she captures Milo's (the black male lead) inner-turmoil perfectly. This is a very fascinating read!

Rating:
Summary: Weak, slighly entertaining read
Review: Milo Robicheaux's deceitful agent, Darryl, never let him forget he was in an interracial marriage. He called his wife, Charlotte, Miss Ann and continually told the couple they looked like a Dairy Queen mistake; the chocolate and vanilla ice creams colliding. This is the bane of Kate Manning's novel, Whitegirl. At first impression after reading the jacket cover, one will immediately think of the O.J. Simpson/Nicole Simpson crime of the jealous black husband accused of killing his sexy, blonde, white wife or the famous play by Shakespeare, Othello. Charlotte Halsey is a fair-skinned, almost white-haired blonde who spent her early life on the beauty pageant circuit, raised by a mother who put a lot of stock in one's appearance and looks. Told in the first person voice of Charlotte Halsey Ribocheaux, the story opens with her in the hospital as she recovers from a devastating assault in her home. She has apparently been attacked with a knife and her husband, Milo is in jail for the crime, all the time insisting he did not do it, but in fact found her and tried to save her life.

Raised in a dysfunctional, religious family, Charlotte escapes her small Northern California home to go to college in Vermont where she meets Milo Robicheaux, a black skier, who was raised in Rugged Mountain, New Hampshire where his family are the only blacks in the town. "Blacks don't ski," is Charlotte's first impression and then immediately chastises herself, after all she is not a racist. Charlotte is the girlfriend of Jack, Milo's ski teammate, who looks like her brother, pale and blonde. She and Milo dance together at a party, see each other on campus and go their separate ways. Fast forward seven years when they cross paths in New York where Charlotte is now a well-known fashion model and Milo, after achieving Olympic Gold status and having made millions in endorsements, is now a television sportscaster.

The courtship gets off to a rocky start but eventually they fall in love, but not without advice and concern from others. A black model tells Charlotte, "You know you are a phase for him." Her parents, although claiming that all men are created equal, caution her about her choice--- her mother is constantly hinting that she should be with Jack. Milo's parents, however, were the most contradicting. "Son, your mother is a beautiful black woman and so is your sister. " his father reminds him. True, but that is not what he saw in his snow white town in New Hampshire despite childhood summer visits to his parents' native New Orleans. Milo did not have a clue of how to relate to a black woman; they scorned him and called him a white boy. Neither was he seen as black by his white classmates or friends and associates. He was a white man that looked black. He was an All-American boy, an Oreo.

Milo's white soul persona therefore does not jive with some of the inconsistencies of the character, making him an enigma. After he becomes an acclaimed actor, he is suddenly concerned about his image and the fact that he is married to a white woman. He is asked to serve on a board of a black organization and suddenly the dynamics are reversed when Charlotte is one of the few whites at the functions they attend. Things heat up when Charlotte puts her foot in her mouth, while being interviewed by the press about state of a black neighborhood. Milo immediately overreacts, and abandons her and their young daughter, Hallie, for five weeks. Constantly frustrated in her marriage, Charlotte turns to the bottle and abuses antidepressants while obsessing over her fading beauty.

Charlotte's sometimes whiney monologue at times was annoying and repetitive. As she reminisces, she asks herself repeatedly if her husband is capable of hurting her and considers two other possible suspects, including Jack, who has recently reinserted himself back into her life. Meanwhile, she cannot help agonize over the betrayal Milo had presented her just a few days before the attack. Because the author of this novel is white, (her picture strikingly resembles the character Charlotte) she is able to get into the head of how a white woman who has violated the great taboo feels and acts, which adds validity and texture to the story line. The book, for the most part, was well-written but was not without some stereotypical portrayals. It is questionable if this book will be favorable to those in interracial relationships.

Dera Williams

APOOO BookClub

Rating:
Summary: Great book club reading
Review: My book group just finished Whitegirl to rave reviews. My group is made up of about ten New York City mothers and everyone reacted positively to Kate Manning's first novel. For many of us, myself included, Whitegirl was a page turner, keeping us up late at night, anxious to find out if Milo and Charlotte were going to make it.
I definitely recommend this book as a book group selection -- it has plently of material for a thought-provoking discussion. Because it's a quick read, I also recommend it for beach reading. I can't wait for Manning's next novel.

Rating:
Summary: Playing The Race Card....and Winning!
Review: Someone wanted her dead. Intent was good, but the results were quite different.... the canvas for the text and temperament for attempted murder is picture-perfect here. When a highly successful and stunning white woman is violently assaulted and her husband, a black athlete turned actor, is the prime suspect, one readily thinks of a specific high- profile case juiced in the news recently. Whether inspiration was prevalent for this book to come to fruition, only the author, Kate Manning knows for sure. "White Girl" is a poignant story of Charlotte Halsey, who for all practical purposes considered herself normal and oblivious to race and color...but after meeting and falling in love with Milo Robicheaux, all that changed. Color became more apparent, if not reasonable fodder for conjecture, in her attempt to find answers to the vicious assault that nearly took her life. The thing is, the would-be killer didn't finish the job...and Charlotte doesn't remember a thing!

Debut novels are not supposed to be as riveting, compelling, and so full of drama that we forget to anticipate flaws in writing style, plot pacing, and character development. We tend to expect these things to be evident, but we get none of this in this author's auspicious offering. In fact, the tone and tenor tantilize and tease as the author takes us on a journey to find the real culprit. Narrated in the first person, the book delves into issues and circumstances inherent in an interracial relationship where the opportunity to draw parallels are inevitable, if not predictable. Through Charlotte, she is able to give analytical perspective(s) to racial identity and complexities, real or imagined, in marrying a black man in a society that may not be ready to accept it. The book flows with continuity throughout as it explores meaning to the why and what of the attack, thus the hue and cry of the questions that are asked will give this novel a lot if it's flavor...and color! Who was the culprit? Was it really Milo, green with envy and jealous of her friendship with his best friend? Was it Jack, a temperamental ladies man with streaks of violence, who on occasion left her black and blue? What about her agent, a man prone to hints of yellow cowardice in his innuendos as to who may be responsible? Or, could it be anyone from the rage of society who didn't like this liaison to begin with?

Charlotte herself admits to the confusion and doubts of why it would happen in the first place. To wit: "I am under a blanket of suspicion. I have my own suspicion of Darryl. I DO suspect Milo. What's more, I suspect Jack. I suspect God, too. Who else could have thought this mess up? Who else but someone twisted enough to send his own child to earth to get nails hammered through his body, and stuck up alive on a cross like some kind of human note on a bulletin board?" This is an excellent read! Kate Manning gives us her bent on a highly congestic topic, which shows her sensitivity and penchant for weaving a great storyline against a compatible plot. I, for one, will be waiting for the next book that this author has in store for us.

Rating:
Summary: so much fun
Review: this book is a really good read, and a lot of fun, considering that it's the story of a murder attempt and a marriage gone bad. The main characters, Charlotte and Milo, are by turns charming, engaging, infuriating and enraged, but they're always believably human, and easy to connect with. The lesser characters, though, really show off Manning's versatility: Darryl, the wily promoter; Claire, the witty and confused best friend; Simon, the sardonic British ex-boyfriend; Charlotte's stiff fundamentalist parents and Milo's stiff academic parents (both sets poignant in their own way); and -- especially adorable and touching -- Charlotte and Milo's little girl, Hallie. I loved the bits about "Cade," the black exploitation movie series in which Milo stars. The book also makes some good and subtle points about what it means to be white in America.