Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 40 No. 6. April 4 1977
Book review — Kinflicks: Lisa Alther — Chatto and Windhus (hard). — Penguin (paper)
Book review
Kinflicks: Lisa Alther
Chatto and Windhus (hard).
Penguin (paper).
This book comes swaddled in accolades from such ranking heavyweight feminist darlings as Doris Lessing who is reputed to have said No man could have written this book!', and after reading it I can only say that I'm inclined to agree with her.
The plot is exceedingly simple, and works from two different levels. The connecting chapters concern Ms Babcock's growth—from her relationships as a cheerleader with two of her school's most prominent atheletes, through the inculcation of outmoded philosophic values as—with the necessary digressions to state the case fully—to her relationship with her dying mother, which as a series of vignettes connects the growth to the refective passages of the book. I think Ms Alther has in mind pulling a Doctorow or a Heller on her reading public—instead it comes out as pure entertainment with neither sufficient probes in the area of her heroine's psychological motivation or in an attempt to build up a reasonably cohesive theme to justify already received over-seas kudos.
—Patrick O'Dea