The Last Manly Man
Penguin Books, 2001
ISBN 0142000396
Christina says:
Once more Robin Hudson’s Special Reports at the New York based All
News Network is in danger of being closed down due to budget cuts. She
wants to convince her boss Jack Jackson with a series about the Man of the
Future that she is better than her rivals Reb Ryan and Solange Stevenson
and deserves to keep her job. But as usual fate intervenes, this time in
the shape of a strange man who delays her on the way to an interview.
Apparently she unwittingly triggered something with her initial research.
Mysterious men follow her around and animal rights activist Jason gets her
involved in his search for a bunch of bonobo apes.
What is the Man of the Future, the post-feminist man, going to be like?
This question is often discussed nowadays. Of course even Sparkle Hayter
doesn’t have a definite answer, but she entertains her readers
splendidly while her heroine is looking for it. Robin meets a bunch of
clichéd characters like the fanatic feminist Alana DeWitt who is
impatiently waiting for the Y-chromosome to become extinct, the
entrepreneur Gill Morton who would still like to sell his detergents to
women only, and Jason who sees conspiracies everywhere and is against
everything. Some of the series regulars this time remain in the background
and with some a drastic change in their relationship with Robin seems
imminent. Even if Robin’s adventures ask for major suspension of
disbelief, it’s a pleasure to read about them thanks to Hayter’s wry
sense of humor. Sideswipes go in all directions. Confirmed old macho Jack
Jackson, boss of ANN, who has to open a feminist conference desperately
tries to find his way faced with different currents in Feminism and to
find out what the heck it is that modern women expect. Of course Good Old
Boys and women going for each other’s throats cannot be ignored given
the subject of the book. But the outrageous ending reminds us that we
ought take neither ourselves nor the current dogmas too seriously.
THE LAST MANLY MAN is a book for people who like a self-confident
female protagonist and eccentric character, don’t insist on too much
realism and enjoy a book that makes them laugh out loud. |
Any comments? Write us:
Christina Gross
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