Scenes from a Sistah

Files does a fair impersonation of Terry McMillan, unfurling a self-consciously spunky, energetic tale of two young black women. Misty Fine and Reesy Snowden have been friends since second grade in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Misty is the child of white working-class parents who have no complaints about the American Dream; Reesy is the product of aggressively wealthy black parents who bewail her rejection of the buppie fast track. Misty, a property manager for a large regional firm, always falls for men of questionable character; Reesy works clerical jobs despite her M.B.A. and approaches men with a worldly cynicism. Covering the last half of their 20s, the story observes the friends as they move from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta to Manhattan. Two such different personalities will inevitably disagree: Reesy berates Misty for being blind to her lovers' deceitful or twisted behavior; Misty is appalled by Reesy's night job as a stripper and disturbed by the power rush she experiences when teasing her audiences. When Misty takes a high-powered position in New York, she hires Reesy as her administrative assistant. Working together for the first time, they find their friendship sorely tested. Files's debut is a rollicking tale of the adventures of two cosmopolitan women of spirit and passion. Their dialogue is frank, casually crude and often quite funny. Their bravado, however, can't cover the fundamental callowness of a book that ends with the friends toasting: ""To life, liberty, and the pursuit of great fucks."" Author tour. (Apr.)