No squeaks or mess

Press, 22 June 1985, Page 20

No squeaks or mess

Illusions of Love. By Cynthia Freeman. Collins, 1985. 261 pp. $24.95.

On the dust cover the author is comfortably, but artistically, sitting on an expensively antique wing chair, dressed in an unostentatious, but exclusive little black dress, hair perfectly in place, and with a glass of white wine in a crystal goblet within easy reach. It is not surprising therefore that she has produced a collection of carefully honed cliches of human behaviour which fit into a smoothly functioning book, without squeaks or mess. Consider the ingredients: the only son of a Jewish, San Francisco, family that has moved in a few generations from ghetto poverty in France to a highly successful brokerage firm; expected marriage and breeding with suitable daughter of family friend; meeting with Roman Catholic beauty who has worked through a hard school of knocks; brief earthquake-making affair; realisation of familial duty and “warm” feelings towards daughter of family friend — marriage; re-combustion in fifth decade of original embers and final return to comfort of carpet-slipper wife. It is an aptly named book that gives the illusion and shadow of emotion with human beings studied through multi-faceted lead crystal which takes away their true passion and pain. — Ralf Unger.