Reviews of PINK

AfterEllen.com
Across the Page: New Releases
http://www.afterellen.com/Books/2007/11/acrossthepage
by Heather Aimee O’Neill
November 6, 2007

The narrator of Jennifer Harris' ingenious first novel, Pink, is spiraling. Tired of walking into bookstores and wondering why she is not among the many authors lining the shelves, she is lost in the fantasy of what will happen when she publishes her first book. "When" is the operative word here.

The book will "make men sigh and bring tears like the best movies." It's not an actual self-help/love/discovery book, but it will sit next to those books on the shelf. Most importantly, it will bring the narrator fame, fortune, friends and love.

Harris weaves together several different threads, providing the narrator with a unique, beguiling voice. Though the prose is written in the future tense, we learn most about the narrator when she refers to her present or past self: "My book will not have witty metaphors for my loneliness the way some authors do. Instead, my little pink book will mask all of this; it will make people think that I have always been this lovable thing, this person everyone wanted to know but didn't."

One of the more interesting parts of the book is how Harris manages to balance humor with darkness. The darkest thread, and perhaps the most significant in the narrator's life, is how she was abused by her grandfather when she was a young girl: "I will not let my fans know … that I feel this wound inside me that I can't seem to shake, as if something was torn out of me when I was too young to remember. And I won't connect this to my grandfather because this is something I will never think about."

The publication of this "little pink book," the narrator believes, will take away all of that pain. The book will be made into a film, which will come with its own set of complications. Steven Spielberg will option it, and she will have to deal with his assistant, Henry — or multiple assistants named Henry.

But best of all, the narrator will fall in love with a woman who will help take away the stress that's sure to come with the book's publication. The two will have a complicated history; the girl once wrote a bad review of the narrator's work when she was in college. Up until that point, the narrator referred to her as "evil review girl," but now the two will reunite under completely different circumstances.

The narrator will also try to make peace with her family — her brothers, who are dead; her mother, who did not protect her from her grandfather and now wants her to marry Brad Pitt — all because of this book. As she moves further into her fantasy, the writing becomes a sort of prayer for forgiveness, acceptance and healing.

Pink is an incredibly well-crafted, inventive novel about what it means to dream so big that the dream itself becomes reality.

PINK Magazine (Spring 2007)

"Poetic and unique in execution, the first-person narrator of Jennifer Harris' debut novel foretells a future based not on what is or was, but what will be when the novel she will write is published....So poignant are the details and engrossing is the text, the reader forgets the plot is based on fantasy-despite the narrator's constant reminding-yielding a powerfully emotional and unexpected finish."

EDGE Entertainment
Review by Ellen Wernecke EDGE Entertainment Contributor Tuesday Jan 23, 2007

The unnamed writer who narrates Jennifer Harris's Pink has big plans for her book. All she needs to do now is write it.

A book written entirely in the future tense has the potential to get repetitive, but Pink is a charming book that unfolds forward in possibilities while simultaneously expanding the backstory.

The book's exact subject is never made clear - but not so its effect on the world, which will immediately take it up and be inspired by it. But it will also let the writer avoid reinventing herself to be the person she always wanted to be - which includes coming out to her parents. She imagines a string of branded products that will follow her success, but also wishes her parents would take a hint from its color and stop asking her about the boyfriends she invents for their benefit. "I will not be at all what they wanted," she explains. "I will be a total surprise. I will be their worst fear."

After the writer sells her book and Spielberg buys the rights, she rents an attic room in Los Angeles and tries to sort out the screenplay and begin living her new life. The existence of the book pulls the writer forward, but also erases her mistakes. "It will make people think that I have always been this lovable thing," she says, "this person everyone wanted to know but didn't. I will not let my fans know, especially the ones just like me, that, in fact, I am paralyzed," she declares.

There's even an "evil review girl" known as Buddy Holly who panned the author's chapbook back in college and then made out with her one night. But instead of vengeance, the writer looks to her for love after a chance encounter in an LA coffee shop, even while she delineates the six circumstances under which the critic will leave her. Unlike her brief, perfunctory relationships with men, in which "my body was a lie," loving Buddy Holly forces the writer to be candid about herself for the first time. Pink is a novel of grace notes with the rare misstep. The former critic's speech regretting her untimely pan, for example, is unnecessary - or at least this critic is inclined to think so. But this novel of the future is a gamble that pays off thanks to Harris's sweet and well drawn narrator.

Ellen Wernecke's work has appeared in The Providence Journal and Publishers Weekly. She lives in New York City.

Raymond Hammond, Editor of the New York Quarterly poetry magazine

Pink wraps what has been and what is into a UNIQUE AND COMPELLING story of what will be, Jennifer Harris grounds the reader with her in both time and place presenting a read that is, at one moment in time, poetic, fantastic and fun. In Pink, Ms. Harris engages the reader at every level through the 'what ifs' of her own life by delving into her own psyche and relationships with family and lovers keeping the reader turning the page late into the night. I found Ms. Harris' use of the future to tell a self-investigation of the now a unique device that not only worked but allowed more inward challenges for both author and reader by not divulging (or clearly defining for the reader) that line between what is the then and what is the now and what is the was--A TRUE POETIC READ.

bookpleasures.com
Review by Jessica Roberts (UK),

Jennifer Harris has been a successful poet, having had her poetry featured in several national magazines from the New York Quarterly to Swerve. Jennifer founded and directed a three-year reading series at The Art Institute of Chicago. Amongst these many successes, she became the editor of a small literary magazine called JackLeg Press. She was also a finalist in FourWay Books national book contest.

Ms Harris was a student at the University of Arizona and finished her MFA in writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jennifer has spent the past five years helping the Tibetan monks from Drepung Gomang Monastery.

Pink is a very feminine novel about the dreams and thoughts of an anonymous lesbian writer living in America. She dreams about having her very own "little pink" book published right from the front of its cover to the very last word. Everything about this novel has to be "pink" from the blushing pink forget-me-nots, to the pink setting sun. Pink is the very essence of one woman's dream. With these thoughts she covers all kinds of different scenarios for her future book. From it hitting the shelves of all the high street book stores, to having frequent phones calls with film director, Mr Spielberg.

This character is so real and wrapped up in her own little imaginary book, I was instantly hooked. We follow her dreams as she invents more and more outcomes for her book in one of them we even see her appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show as the very talented author of "Pink". We see how this character's future dreams unravel and marvel with her as her book is reviewed. The author has cleverly interwoven another side of this fantastic storyline where the character and the title of her book finally become accepted as a gay symbol and are met with much approval. Well that is apart from this writer's mom and dad, who on hearing their daughter is gay, turn around and catch the next flight home. A rather funny picture I thought.
I loved the book, Pink, (also the name of the character's potential book in the novel) and laughed, smiled, cried and fanatizised along with the heroine till the very last page.

Pink is something that is very different from the usual hype. It is so refreshing to actually find a book that has another angle to the gay/lesbian scene. The author also uses her poetic ability throughout this very 'pink' book. I feel certain that this is one of those novels that will find itself a big fan base, especially with covering gay and lesbian rights. It looks like Jennifer Harris has a good writing career ahead of her so place this book on your bedside table or pop it in your handbag. Definitely worth a read even if you're not gay yourself. --

Kissed by Venus
http://kissedbyvenus.ca/?page_id=400
Reviewed by Jean Roberta
Rated: 3.5 StarsCat: Lesbian Fiction
Portrait of the Artist as a Portrait-Painter

This clever, unsettling novel is about a novel-within-the-novel which doesn’t exist, but which has attracted interest from Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Barbara Walters. The actual book is in the tradition of novels about novelists saving their own lives by writing self-defining novels, much like paintings of painters painting self-portraits.

That flawed but iconic 1928 lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness, could be seen as a forerunner of Pink. Stephen Gordon, the misunderstood central character of the earlier book, must leave her ancestral home to write a novel like the one in which she appears.

Pink, the actual book, is less self-indulgent than it sounds. It is partly about the American obsession with fame and celebrity and partly about the continuing invisibility of women, especially lesbians, as individuals. The fictional author of Pink (the imaginary book) has a real need to discover and express her own truth in order to survive. As thoughts of suicide float through her mind, the reader becomes aware that the book she has written (in the future) in literally her lifeline.

The title of the both the real and the unreal book is suggestive of everything feminine and everything “gay,” of diluted blood (an important element in the story told to the writer about her own birth), of a combination of emotion (red) and intelligence (white). “Pink” is even defined as a verb, meaning “to prick or stab.”
The nameless narrator has been raised by a rabidly homophobic mother who sends her photos of wedding gowns and a father who stands by his wife. A sinister grandfather lurks in an actual and metaphorical attic until he dies but does not disappear. The narrator’s sense of self is constantly under threat.

Among other things, this novel is a love story and a coming-out story. At age thirty-two, the narrator has never been in a truly intimate relationship, and the prospect terrifies her even while it fascinates her. To her amazement, the fellow-writer who meets her gaze over a laptop in a café turns out to be “evil review girl,” the one who trashed the narrator’s poetry when she was attending college.

The narrator has never forgotten these stinging phrases: “excruciating to listen to” and “no sense of self.” The reader is reminded of the appalling sensitivity of any fledgling writer. Writers who also write reviews are reminded of the temptation to “pink” someone else’s work; it seems so easy and so consequence-free.
The writer and the reviewer have a symbiotic relationship even before they meet. The writer needs acceptance from the reviewer, who needs forgiveness from the writer. The progress of the relationship is moving, awkward and funny.

Some passages in this novel deserve to be read aloud. Here Pink (the imaginary book) becomes controversial after Martha Stewart has declared pink to be the season’s hip color:
“…it will be good for the book because by the time she gets around to mentioning it, people will be starting to lose interest in the hubbub, and the Reverend Jerry Falwell will chime in and say that pink is damned. He will issue a memo saying pink is the cause of the destruction of families and the reason women are working. He will formally write out for every evangelist to read that pink is what is wrong with this entire country. And the book I will write [Pink] will soar right back to number one on The New York Times best seller list after five months on the market.”
Like the imaginary book, the real book captures the zeitgeist of twenty-first century American culture as well as the eternal paradoxes of human interaction…..the author finds her way through trackless environments and bewildering high-calorie rewards. Read the book and see.