Secret Love

Rating:
Summary: The man cannot write
Review: Don't waste your time reading this clichefest of a novel. The characters are wooden and the situations predictable. It's very, very dull, but won't offend- so really what's the point?

Rating:
Summary: Even as a non-fiction reader, I loved this book!
Review: I admit-I don't read fiction because I'm a slow reader and I think there's too much information that I'm missing if I get involved in fiction. Having said that I loved Secret Love and am tempted to buy his previous book.

I was very fortunate in that I lived in San Francisco in the years after the setting of this novel ['62-'63] and I highlited every city reference that Schneider mentions-streets, businesses, streetcars, sporting references-everything and the entire novel was one wonderful lookback for me. I cannot judge Secret Love by the standards of literary analysis but I can say that he presented an extremely compelling plot-certainly, in my opinion, far removed from anything that would fall under the rubric of "boring".

Schneider's San Francisco falls into that exclusive period between the end of the "Beat" era and the onset of the more
popularly known "Hippie" era with one of the main players actually getting a job behind the counter at that city icon of City Lights bookstore. A fitting dessert for a sumptious meal.

Rating:
Summary: Even as a non-fiction reader, I loved this book!
Review: I admit-I don't read fiction because I'm a slow reader and I think there's too much information that I'm missing if I get involved in fiction. Having said that I loved Secret Love and am tempted to buy his previous book.

I was very fortunate in that I lived in San Francisco in the years after the setting of this novel ['62-'63] and I highlited every city reference that Schneider mentions-streets, businesses, streetcars, sporting references-everything and the entire novel was one wonderful lookback for me. I cannot judge Secret Love by the standards of literary analysis but I can say that he presented an extremely compelling plot-certainly, in my opinion, far removed from anything that would fall under the rubric of "boring".

Schneider's San Francisco falls into that exclusive period between the end of the "Beat" era and the onset of the more
popularly known "Hippie" era with one of the main players actually getting a job behind the counter at that city icon of City Lights bookstore. A fitting dessert for a sumptious meal.

Rating:
Summary: a great read
Review: It's about time somebody wrote this book that takes a look at San Francisco during the era that the civil rights movement gets off the ground. A widowered Jewish civil rights lawyer falls in love with a young woman who is half black, half white, during a time when that meant a lot of exclusion for her. These characters are very skillfully done, and that whole era is conjured up in authentic ways. The book is sort of a valentine to the real ethnic mix that is San Francisco, not the touristy image it acquired. I read it in one sitting, couldn't put it down. Blue Bossa was a good novel, but this one is even better.