Mainstream Fiction

Leslie E. Banks

Simon & Schuster

October 2002

0-74345-739-0

(4) Nathasha Brooks-Harris

PLOT SYNOPSIS: 

The first original novel based on the Showtime series "Soul Food, " which is based on the 1997 feature film of the same name. The lives of three very different sisters--Teri the oldest, a lawyer; Maxine, happily married and mother of three; and Bird, free-spirited and ambitious, yet weighted down by commitment to her ex-con husband--intertwine in a tale filled with warmth, humor, and family drama.

REVIEW: 

Just when the popular Showtime drama heats up and you think things can’t get any better, something else appears on the scene. Now, there’s a book series by the same name written by romance novelist Leslie Esdaile, writing as Leslie E. Banks.

You’ll be drawn in from page one because this action-filled novel reads just like the television show. There’s always something going on and someone’s always in someone else’s business. Of course, that makes for lots of drama, arguments and misunderstandings that must be undone.

In this first book, FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE, Bird is her usual suspicious self because Lem has an appointment every Wednesday night with the kids at the local community center. But Bird swears that there’s another woman in her mix and she’s not having it!

Lem is going to the community center, but not for the reasons he’s telling Bird. For once in his married life, he wants something for himself—something that he can call his own that is not tied to the Joseph family. He is working toward a goal that he keeps secret from Bird because he doesn’t want her to question him or try to talk him out of it. Instead, he’s hoping that once he has everything together and can present things formally, he’ll have her unconditional support. He is also hoping that he will have the support of the clannish Joseph family—especially the doubting Thomasina, Terri—his biggest critic.

As hard as Len tries to get past his prison background, it comes back to haunt him. Everyone throws it back in his face and it proves to stand between him and what he’s trying to do.

Bird finally learns the truth as well as the fact that it comes with a heavy price: her hair salon. She is so stressed out about it that she soon learns that she is ill.

Ultimately, she must deal with Lem’s secret, his asking her to involve her salon in it and her sickness. In addition, she must deal with her nosey sisters and their men when she tells them her business and they blow it out of proportion. Once again, Lem is made to look like the bad guy although he hasn’t done anything wrong. And as the saying goes, the stuff hits the fan!

Banks is obviously a fan of the show because I read this book looking for inconsistencies—especially in character. I found none. Every nuance, action and reaction that the characters made are correct and on point. It is actually scary because Ms. Banks  includes the little things that only an observant writer would. For instance, she writes in how Terry has a bad habit of doing five things at once and choosing what she’d react to and then when she does, she’d retreat to using legalisms on the poor soul on the other end. That is difficult to depict on film, probably more so on paper, but Banks pulls it off—well. She is even able to accurately show how Kenny is so old-fashioned that he wants  Maxine to stay at home and raise children, not pursue her dream of writing. All these things are successfully depicted through the action and it makes sense once seen in context of the rest of the story. Banks also accurately depicts the family members’ roles and makes readers understand why they behave toward each other like they do. The only way she is able to pull that off as well as she does is by understanding their sociological and psychological backgrounds. It’s as though she has lived with these people and is able to translate what she has seen onto the pages of her book.

The plot flows naturally and it seems like just another day in the mixed up lives of the Joseph-Chadway clan. The quick pace helps to move the story along and the events that unfolded are believable.

Banks also uses her ear well in writing this novel because each of the character’s voices is distinctive and the dialogue matches them perfectly. It is most noticeable in Lem who can speak the street vernacular when he is around his boys in the bar and speaks the King’s English when in a business environment.

Banks has proven that she can write stories in yet another genre well. Known for her humorous and sizzling romances, she is now delving into paranormal, women’s fiction and just about anything she takes a notion to try.

Not much more can be said about this great book except that it should be read by every Soul Food fan—old and new. If you enjoy reading a book that has a mile a minute drama and lots of laughs, perhaps even a few tears, FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE, is a book that shouldn’t be missed. Personally, this reviewer is on pins for the next book in this series! Once you read this one, you will be, too!

nathasha@romanceincolor.net (15th November 2002)