Hunters & Gatherers
Francine Prose. Holt McDougal, $14 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-8050-4896-4
Wonderfully comic satire of a lonely woman involved in a New Age feminist group. (Jan.)
Details
Reviewed on: 12/30/1996
Genre: Fiction
- Amazon
- Apple Books
- Barnes & Noble
- Bookshop
- Share
- Tweet
- Copy Link
More By and About this Authorchevron_right
- THE LIVES OF THE MUSES: Nine Women & the Artists They InspiredFrancine Prose"I have never seen you without thinking that I should like to pray to you," says the poet Rilke. The object of his devotion is the astonishing Lou Andreas-Salomé—the woman who Continue reading »
- AFTERFrancine Prose, After ProseThis novel set in the near future offers a chilling examination of controlling forces undermining individual rights. After a shooting takes place at Pleasant Valley, a Massachusetts high school, Continue reading »
- SICILIAN ODYSSEYFrancine ProseIf asked to pick the "one quality that seems dependable, immutable, endlessly available" in Sicily, novelist and essayist Prose would choose intensity. It is difficult, she admits, to Continue reading »
- GLUTTONYFrancine ProseOriginally a lecture in the New York Public Library's Seven Deadly Sins series, this erudite little meditation on appetite and religion matches ancient and medieval texts (Petronius, St. John Continue reading »
- AFTERFrancine ProseAfter a shooting takes place in a Massachusetts high school, a group of friends grow uneasy as the extra security precautions become more and more extreme. PW Continue reading »
- A CHANGED MANFrancine ProseA starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a Continue reading »
- Caravaggio: Painter of MiraclesFrancine ProseThe first thing to know about this life of the Italian baroque painter Caravaggio is that it is not a proper biography but rather an informal appreciation by novelist and occasional art critic Continue reading »
- Leopold, the Liar of LeipzigFrancine ProseMismatched art and text unfortunately obscure the theme of this confusing story about the difference between lying and storytelling. Every Sunday afternoon Leopold of Leipzig tells fantastical Continue reading »
- Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write ThemFrancine ProseThe trick to writing, Prose writes, is reading—carefully, deliberately and slowly. While this might seem like a no-brainer, Prose (Blue Angel ;
Continue reading » - Reading Like a WriterFrancine ProseSavard has a pleasant voice, a good vocal range and the important ability to emphasize for clarity and drama. She's especially good at the long and very varied quotes Prose has selected to Continue reading »
- BullyvilleFrancine ProseIn a taut, brilliantly controlled novel, Prose (After ) dissects the unspoken dynamics that create bullies and their intended victims. Bart Rangely, the Continue reading »
- GoldengroveFrancine ProseIn Prose's deeply touching and absorbing 15th novel, narrator Nico, 13, comes upon Gerard Manley Hopkins's “Spring and Fall” (which opens “Margaret, are you grieving/ Continue reading »
- Rhino, Rhino, Sweet PotatoFrancine ProseThink of that axiom about teaching a man to fish—switch rhinos for the guy and sweet potatoes for fish, and the result, unfortunately, breaks no new ground. The hero, a redheaded boy named Continue reading »
- TouchFrancine ProseProse offers a nuanced meditation on how stories of abuse can confuse and obscure the truth. When Maisie returns to her father and stepmother's home after a year living with her mother, she Continue reading »
- Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the AfterlifeFrancine ProseIn considering the iconic diary of Anne Frank, prolific novelist and critic Prose (Reading Like a Writer ), praises the young writer's fresh narrative Continue reading »
- Primitive PeopleFrancine ProseThrough the eyes of protagonist Simone, an illegal immigrant from Haiti who becomes a ``caregiver'' to the children of unforgivably self-absorbed parents, Prose illuminates some of the ludicrous Continue reading »
- The Angel's Mistake: Stories of ChelmFrancine ProseThe foolishness of the people of Chelm, a favorite subject of Yiddish folktales, offers choice material for Prose and Podwal, previously paired for Dybbuk. Prose's loose story line first establishes Continue reading »
- You Never Know: A Legend of the Lamed-Vavniks: A Legend of the Lamed-VavniksFrancine ProseJewish tradition inspires this original tale about Schmuel the shoemaker, called Poor Stupid Schmuel by the townsfolk of Plotchnik because of his habit of forgetting to charge his customers. When a Continue reading »
- Blue AngelFrancine ProseTrust the iconoclastic Prose to turn conventional received wisdom on such subjects as predatory professors, innocent female students and the necessity for a degree of political correctness on campus Continue reading »
- Bigfoot DreamsFrancine ProseYou can walk into Vera Perl's Brooklyn apartment house and pick her out of a clutch of tenants: you will recognize her charged, speculative voice. She writes for a yellow rag called This Week, thinks Continue reading »
- Bigfoot Dreams Counter DisplayFrancine ProseBrooklynite Vera Perl, who thinks in absurd, alliterative headlines, is fired from her newspaper job and loses her daughter to her estanged husband, which allows her to pursue the eponymous Bigfoot. Continue reading »
- Hungry HeartsFrancine ProseLike a chameleon, Prose seems able to switch subjects and styles with amazing versatility. Her past works include the tale of an actress possessed by a dybbuk (Hungry Hearts) and that of a journalist Continue reading »
- Primitive PeopleFrancine ProseHaving acquired an audience of discerning readers with such novels as Household Saints and Bigfoot Dreams , Prose comes into her own with this acerbic comedy of manners. Both deliciously wicked and Continue reading »
- The Peaceable Kingdom: StoriesFrancine ProseProse ( Primitive People ; Household Saints ) is a highly talented writer who in this collection of stories--most of them previously published in little magazines--seems to be seeking a subject. They Continue reading »
- Hunters and GatherersFrancine ProseProse (Bigfoot Dreams; Primitive People) has been steadily simplifying her work since the rather complex constructions of her earlier books, and her latest novel shows a striking advance in both Continue reading »
- Dybbuk: A Story Made in HeavenFrancine ProseProse has transformed the classic Jewish folktale of the dybbuk, a troublesome spirit that can inhabit and terrorize the human body, into a lively and entertaining children's story. Her light touch Continue reading »
- Guided Tours of Hell: NovellasFrancine ProseThe ego is a slippery thing. Suppress it and it sneaks in through the back door all the stronger. In the two deftly written novellas included in this volume, Prose (Hunters and Gatherers) creates Continue reading »
- The Demons' Mistake: A Story from ChelmFrancine ProseExpert at refashioning Jewish folktales, Prose (previously paired with Podwal for The Angel's Mistake: Stories of Chelm) invents one just right for contemporary audiences. The story begins in Chelm, Continue reading »
- The TurningFrancine ProseThis alluring epistolary retelling of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw traces a contemporary babysitter’s supernatural encounters. The protagonist, Jack, is hoping to earn some money for college Continue reading »
- Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932Francine ProseProse’s 21st novel (after The Turning) captures the brilliance of Paris’s bohemian art scene in the ’20s and ’30s, as well as the dark days that followed. Louisianne “Lou” Villars, a Continue reading »
- Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the ModernFrancine ProseLively, complex, and inclined to shock, Guggenheim (1898–1979), the modern art collector, emerges as the embodiment of the age in Prose’s (Lovers at the Chameleon Club) judicious biography. Continue reading »
- Mister MonkeyFrancine ProseThe story of Prose’s (Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932) latest novel is the story of Mister Monkey, a regrettable children’s musical, itself based on the unlikely success of Continue reading »
![]()
PW: How did you come around to the idea of The Lives of the Continue reading »![]()
PW talks with Francine Prose. Continue reading »![]()
In After, Francine Prose's first book for young adults, the author of Blue Angel and other books for adults explores the cost of giving up freedoms under the guise of protection Continue reading »![]()
In her new novel 'The Vixen,' Prose examines the misuses of Continue reading »
PW EDITORS’ PICKS FOR
THE BEST NEW BOOKS
PW EDITORS’ PICKS FOR THE BEST NEW BOOKS
Featured Fiction Reviews
Blob: A Love Story
Maggie Su
In Su’s marvelous debut, a Taiwanese American woman sculpts a seemingly perfect partner out of a sentient blob. Two years after failing out of college, Vi works as a hotel Continue reading »
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert
Bob the Drag Queen
Bob the Drag Queen, a former winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, debuts with a vivacious narrative that sees Harriet Tubman magically brought back to life. Revived in the present day Continue reading »
Death Takes Me
Cristina Rivera Garza
A poetry-obsessed serial killer mutilates men in this unforgettable literary puzzle from Rivera Garza, who won the Pulitzer for her memoir, Liliana’s Invincible Summer. After a Continue reading »
The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Haruki Murakami
Bestseller Murakami (Killing Commendatore) unspools an intoxicating fantasy of a parallel world. The unnamed middle-aged narrator recounts how, at 17, he fell in love with a Continue reading »
chevron_right
