"A GUARANTEED, GET-HAPPY HIT!"
On The Bookshelf
PAT
`Total Recall'
Author Sarah Paretsky keeps churning
out page-turners, including her latest in
the VI. Warshawski detective series.
BENNY ANDERSSON & BJORN ULVAEUS'
CURT SCHLEIER
MAMMA
Special to the Jewish News
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.1
A Difficult Childhood
Ironically. Lorry was never intended to
be a regular in the series. V.I. needed a
physician in the first book, Indemnity
Only (1982), and, Paretsky said,'"she
began growing in my imagination. V.I.
is my alter ego; Lotty much more rep-
resents my personality."
Paretsky, married ro a physicist and
living in Chicago, where she is the
stepmother to three sons and "a proud
ara Paretsky created private
investigator V I.
Warshawski almost 20 years
go. Warshawski is a tough
b
cookie who knows karate, can handle
a weapon and has been known to
bed a good-looking informant.
Nothing unusual about that, you
say? Did I mention that the "V"
stands for Victoria?
Warshawski was among the
first fictional female P.I.s. She
was introduced at a time when
damsels were supposed to be in
distress, not resourceful, witty —
and deadly.
The character quickly caught
the public's fancy, and has
appeared in nine best-selling
novels and one dreadful movie
(1991's V.I. Wirshawski, starring
Kathleen Turner) since.
The 10th in the series, Total
Recall, (Delacorte; 525.95) is
Paretsky's most ambitious and
best to date.
Its themes are extremely con-
temporary: deteriorating relations
between blacks and Jews, recov-
ered memory and reparations.
It is also her most personal, a
Sarah Paretsky: "When I turned 30,
story, Paretsky said in a recent tele- I said, 'This is it. I better do it.'''
phone interview, she'd been fid-
dling with for between 10 and 15
grandmother," grew up in what she
years.
describes as a "dysfunctional" Jewish
Total Recall centers on
family in the outskirts of Lawrence,
Warshawski's doctor-friend, Lottv
Kan.
Herschel, a Kindertransport refugee
Her father had emotional problems,
born in Vienna, who made it out just and it became increasingly difficult to
before the war and grew up and
communicate with him. Her mother
studied medicine in England before
withdrew and began to drink.
coming to the United States.
"I think Lotty- became a way for me
In this detective yarn, Paul
to approach my family experience and
Radbuka, raised a Lutheran, claims
try to make it part of my life without
to have recovered repressed memories
having it be so overwhelming. That's
indicating he is actually a Jewish
why I made her come from Vienna
concentration camp survivor. The
rather than Eastern Europe," from
furor that surrounds the announce-
which Paretsky's paternal grandparents
ment — and Paul's claim that he
emigrated.
may be connected to V.I's friend Max
Like thousands before them, they
— forces Lotty to deal with memo-
went to work in New York City's gar-
ries she's spent most of her life trying
ment industry where they met on
to forget. .
an ILGWU picket line. 'At least, that's