FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Women Talking Dirty
by Isla Dewar
Headline Book Publishing, 249 pp. $12.99Don't let the title fool you. Women Talking Dirty is a book by a woman, about women and probably written for other women. However, Isla Dewar's second novel does offer considerable insight into the gender in question. Flying somewhere over Colorado, I read the first passage. "There are women whose eyes lock momentarily in bars, across crowded rooms, in the street and, though they are strangers, they recognize each other. They go through that female summing-up thing, the subliminal eyeflick, the quick look from shoes to haircut, and for a second their eyes meet."
I passed the book to my little friend and said, "That's true you know." This friend is possessed of the dangly bits of skin that make one distinctly male. He read the same, thought deeply and uttered profoundly, "Looks like a chick book to me." He wouldn't have been disappointed. Dewar continues to astutely detail the lives of her heroines, Ellen and Cora. Ellen is a mildly-disturbed cartoon artist while Cora prefers teaching and raising children. Cora is amazingly fertile; her only two sexual liaisons have left her with the same number of offspring. These two women are different, but united by their common taste for vodka.
Although the book takes place in Scotland, it could happen anywhere; philandering husbands and neurotic friends don't seem indigenous to any one locale. Women Talking Dirty is definitely a feel-warm-and-fuzzy-because-you-have-ovaries book. Even though the ending is a little too tidy, it's an amusing holiday book, sister.
Renee Groves
Back To Main Contents
Back To This Issue Table of Contents