DON'T MAKE A SCENE
Valerie Block
Ballantine Books
Fiction
ISBN-10: 0345461851
ISBN-13: 9780345461858

• Read an Excerpt
• Author Talk -- August 3, 2007

As an average single woman-about-town, I enjoy a good romance (read "chick-lit") as much as the next gal. I read BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY and saw the movies (both of them!), and I have worshipped at the shrine of Mr. Darcy (the ultimate chick-lit hero). But as the years roll by (and yes, mother, I still have not met Mr. Right), some of those stories start feeling a little stale. It's one thing to be adorably single and in a dead-end job when you're 29 or 30 --- but the cuteness wears thin when you're beginning to look 40 in the face.

That's the great thing about Valerie Block and her new novel, DON'T MAKE A SCENE. It's a breath of fresh air in the sometimes-stale world of modern women's fiction.

Block's heroine, Diane Kurasik, is no starry-eyed twentysomething with a dead-end job in publishing. She's 39 years old, a passionate film connoisseur with her own classic theater (the Bedford Street Cinema) and a great rent-controlled apartment in the Village. What more could a woman want? Well, true love, for one thing. Like single women everywhere, Diane bemoans the frustrations of Dating Hell:

"A man's complete attention wasn't a realistic possibility at this late stage of the game. All the generalists --- the easygoing, well-adjusted fellows such as her father, her brother-in-law, the husbands of most of her friends --- who were capable of giving their complete attention to a woman, had married before the age of thirty. The remainder tended to be specialists, obsessed with something --- often their work, but not always. In twenty-five years of dating, fifteen of them dedicated exclusively to specialists, she'd met Lactose Intolerant Man, Open Up American Trade with Vietnam Man, Blues Man, Bluegrass Man, Second Amendment Man, and Windsurf Man."

What modern woman over 30 can't relate to this?

As the charm of being single grows increasingly thin, the unthinkable happens --- Diane loses her lease on her apartment and is evicted. She hunts for a new affordable Manhattan apartment (something that, I know firsthand, can only be compared to Dante's Seventh Circle of Hell) while staying on the couches of friends. In the midst of this search, Diane begins some much-needed renovation work on her theater --- and meets the most Special Specialist of them all, Vladimir Hurtado Padrón, a sexy Cuban architect with a handful of issues, complications, a 17-year-old son, and an estranged wife in Cuba who he hasn't seen in 10 years and who refuses to give him a divorce.

Those who have read Block's previous books, WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID? and NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, are already familiar with her impeccable comic timing and well-drawn characters. Diane does not disappoint, as she has the sly wit, warm personality and slightly fractured charm that fans of Block have come to expect in their heroines. As a Cuban-American myself, I was particularly enthralled with Vladimir --- rarely have I come across a Cuban character created by a non-Cuban author who was so realistic. And Block takes a more balanced look at the situation in Cuba than one would expect in this kind of novel.

While New Yorkers will appreciate the reality of the apartment-hunting scenes more than most ("Aren't all New York stories ultimately about real estate?"), and the references to directors, film stars and classic movies of all genres will appeal especially to cinema buffs, anyone looking for an absorbing story a cut above the usual chick-lit fare will find something to love about DON'T MAKE A SCENE.

    --- Reviewed by Lourdes Orive

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