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Oreo by Fran Ross. Completely and delightfully meshuganah! Remember how excited I was about the beginning? How I wondered if it could possibly keep up for an entire novel? Or would it get old fast? The hilarity remains high throughout and not once does it get old or irritating. In fact, it is continually surprising.
Christine Clark, the offspring of a black mother and Jewish father, is raised by her black grandparents because her father abandoned the family after her brother was born and her mother is constantly traveling. Oreo is Christine’s nickname. It was supposed to be “oriole” but no one could understand her grandmother’s deep and peculiar southern accent and they all thought she said “Oreo.” Of course the name has a double meaning. It is a cookie, but it is also an insult for people who appear to be black but act white. Christine may be called Oreo but an oreo she is not.
What she is is a whip smart, linguistically talented, self-confident, take charge and take no crap young woman. The story is a kind of coming of age quest feminist satire. Christine is Theseus gone in search of her father who has left her clues. She overcomes obstacles, performs deeds, faces dangers, and makes her way through the labyrinth that is the New York City subway system. She finds her father but the story’s end is not one in which our heroine is richly rewarded as Theseus was. This is not that kind of story. Stereotypes and expectations must be subverted, and are.
A big part of the pleasure of this book is the language itself. I am going to have to find a way to work I had “more fun than a tornado in a trailer park” into a conversation some time. It is filled with Yiddish and black vernacular and a made up language and standard English and southern something or other, and puns and puzzles and jokes and word play of all sorts:
As Oreo walked up the street, she saw a pig run squealing out of a doorway, a bacon’s dozen of pursuers pork-barreling after it.
Oreo is sadly Ross’s only novel. It was first published in 1974 to very little notice. Ross worked as a freelance editor and writer, wrote articles for magazines, worked as a proofreader and copyeditor for a couple big publishers and was part owner of a mail order educational supply company. In 1977 she moved to Los Angeles to work as a comedy writer for The Richard Pryor Show. The show did not last long and Ross returned to New York. She died of cancer in 1985 at the age of fifty.
I can understand why Oreo did not get much attention in 1974. It was far ahead of its time and the places that did review it were not sure what to make of it. Thank goodness for independent publishers, because time has finally caught up with the book and New Directions has done us all a service in reprinting it.
I haven’t really told you all that much about the book, but I am not certain I could really do it justice even if I went on and on about it. It is one of those books you have to experience for yourself. Don’t expect realist fiction and well-rounded characters. Don’t expect a linear plot, heck don’t expect much plot at all. Do expect much absurdity, mayhem, and lampooning of everyone and everything. Oh, and expect to giggle, chuckle, guffaw, and laugh out loud.
This definitely sounds like one not to be missed. I’ve never heard of this and such a shame that it was kind of passed by when it was first published.
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Iliana, In 1974 this book would have seemed way out there and while it is still a bit out there I think a good many more readers today won’t find it so incomprehensible. And definitely not to be missed, there aren’t that many truly comic satires by women of color. It’s too bad she never got to write another novel.
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It sooooo sounds like one crazy fun LOL joyride….I am sooooooo disappointed its not available here! 😦
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cirtnecce, it is crazy and fun and sometimes uncomfortable but so well written you would never guess it was a first and only novel. Maybe it will be available where you are sometime. If not, maybe Book Depository might have it?
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I like the sound of this! Do you think though that someone like me, a non-American who hasn’t been exposed to much Yiddish/Southern/African-American vernacular, would be able to follow the word play?
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Helen, I think you’d be able to follow, you might not get all of the references or cultural jokes, but then I didn’t either. And Google helped me with some of the Yiddish words I didn’t know. It is a very American book so if you give it a try I will be very interested to hear what you make of it!
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I wonder just how many more books there are out there that got overlooked in their time but now might find the audience for which they are intended? Is New Directions a publisher making a habit of digging out such gems?
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Alex, I suspect there are quite a few, sadly. New Directions seems to like to publish books like this that have been forgotten as well as books in translation.They do literary that has a bit of an edge. They were the ones who started the Bolano craze in the US.
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Oh wow, I’ve seen coverage of this but I don’t think I fully registered that it was a reprint of an older novel. It sounds fantastic, though!
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Jenny, I didn’t know it was a reprint either until I read the introduction. In spite of its original publication date it really does feel current and fresh.
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This sounds so good! Now that my Kindle has been replaced with a working model, i can look up any Yiddish words or phrases immediately. 🙂
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Jenclair, LOL, that is one of the most helpful features of ebooks! If you read it I hope you enjoy it!
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This sounds a hoot of a novel; one that would have me scratching my head wondering what on earth is going on but enjoying the bafflement rather than get frustrated by it.
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BookerTalk, it is very much a hoot and surprisingly easy to follow. Plus, you might pick up some excellent phrases and words to add to conversations.
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Yay! I’m reading it right now (I’m about halfway through – I’m at the part where she’s taking the subway to Queens to visit her grandfather’s box factory) and I’m really liking it. When my boyfriend and I are sitting on the couch reading together, I keep interrupting his progress in the fantasy novel he’s reading to tell him about various hilarious bits. I like how there’s a mix of funny/preposterous set pieces (like when Oreo puts an ad in the paper and the “doctor” replies) and also funny images or exchanges that don’t involve much build-up (e.g. the aside saying that Oreo’s mom does a great impression of “a bowl of mashed potatoes being covered with gravy”). I’m loving the wordplay and also the Theseus myth references (which I keep having to look up because all I could remember about Theseus was the minotaur part of the story).
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Heather, Yay! So glad to hear you are having so much fun reading the book! There are so many funny bits. I loved all the stuff with the tutors, especially the milkman. I had to look up the Theseus myth too because all I could remember was the minotaur! The things that happen in New York are, well, you’ll see! 😀
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What a great review – I’ve only ever seen this book in passing before – now I’m going to have to hunt out a copy for myself!
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shoshi, thanks! It’s a grade A entertaining book. I hope enjoy it if you read it!
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This sounds really good–it must have been something when it first came out and I think that it probably hasn’t lost anything in the years since. New Directions publishes some really interesting and challenging titles!
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Danielle, it would have been very innovative for its time as well as daring with a biracial main character and several other things that would have made people really uncomfortable. But that’s one of the great things about books, how they can challenge our view of the world. New Directions is a fantastic press 🙂
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I think I’m going to go out and find this book because it looks like very interesting.
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