Flamboyant
When Chana Landau begins her job as a teacher at Harvey Milk High School, she leaves the protection of her traditional Orthodox Jewish enclave in Brooklyn for a school that embodies everything she has been forbidden to experience. In a hostile classroom filled with sexually "different" teens, street kids, and drug addicts, Chana's one support is Flamboyant, a fifteen-year-old prostitute and an accomplished writer. Flamboyant is an unforgettable novel of cultural difference, friendship, and...
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When Chana Landau begins her job as a teacher at Harvey Milk High School, she leaves the protection of her traditional Orthodox Jewish enclave in Brooklyn for a school that embodies everything she has been forbidden to experience. In a hostile classroom filled with sexually "different" teens, street kids, and drug addicts, Chana's one support is Flamboyant, a fifteen-year-old prostitute and an accomplished writer. Flamboyant is an unforgettable novel of cultural difference, friendship, and faith.Tikkun MagazineSwados is one of our best talents, and has a grasp for what is enduring and powerful in the emerging renewal of Jewish sensibilities.
\ Tikkun MagazineSwados is one of our best talents, and has a grasp for what is enduring and powerful in the emerging renewal of Jewish sensibilities.\ \ \ \ \ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ Tapping into a pool of now bromidic tales--Sleeping Beauty, Oliver Twist, Dangerous Minds--playwright and novelist Swados (The Myth Man) spends much of this threadbare novel battling against the cliches that attend a hackneyed plot. Flamboyant, a homeless, 15-year-old prostitute--vulnerable but guarded by her street smarts and acerbic charm--encounters Chana, a naive, frumpy, Orthodox Jewish schoolteacher who has recently been assigned to the Harvey Milk School in downtown Manhattan. The pair becomes a predictable parody: sassy black teen and a hopeless white square (she muses: "The people, mostly men, dressed so differently from what I knew in Brooklyn. So many mustaches! Muscles too!"). While Chana, whose faith and fiance forbid her to consort with lowlife, begins to question what she sees as the hypocrisy of Orthodox Jewish law, Flamboyant finds that her savvy cynicism is no substitute for genuine affection. Narrated by these two distinct voices, the novel toys with gimmicky tropes (e.g., diary entries) and performative gestures (e.g., Flamboyant's dramatic efforts to stage her identity crisis in phrases like "I, Flamboyant, did this and you, Chana, did that"). Despite Swados's good intentions, the book never overcomes its contrived set-up. To paraphrase Chana's rabbi, the novel feels like an unnecessarily long and bumpy trip down a well-trodden path. Editor, George Witte; agent, Amanda Urban; author tour. (Sept.)\ \ \ Library JournalNoted playwright Swados's first novel, The Myth Man (LJ 10/1/94), examined the claustrophobic existence of a closed society spinning out of control. In Flamboyant, the author takes her protagonist from a closed society, thrusting her into an alien world whose values are antithetical to everything she believes. Chana Landau, a devoutly Orthodox Jew, accepts a teaching position in a New York alternative school for young gays and lesbians. Although Chana's religion teaches that homosexuality is an abomination, her heart becomes engaged by the troubled students. In particular, Chana is drawn to Flamboyant, a gifted, sexually ambiguous, 15-year-old prostitute who claims Jewish heritage. Deftly alternating between the diaries of Chana and Flamboyant, who each narrates the story from her own perspective in a distinctive, authentic voice, the novel careens toward the inevitable clash between the world in which Chana lives and her deepening commitment to Flamboyant and the school. Readers will applaud the compassion with which Swados, without demeaning any of her characters, negotiates a seemingly insoluble situation. Highly recommended.--Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsPlaywright/novelist Swados (The Myth Man, 1994, etc.) sends an Orthodox Jewish woman to teach English in a school for gay teenagers. Chana Landau appears ill-equipped to deal with the teen prostitutes and cross-dressers at Manhattan's Harvey Milk High. Her sheltered family home doesn't even contain a television,and she's working to build up a dowry for her impending marriage to the also-devout Avi Wiseman. (Appalled but intrigued by the unbuttoned atmosphere at Harvey Milk, she keeps the details of her new job from her father and fianc‚.) But Chana's tougher than she seems: her ability to maintain ethnic and spiritual integrity when dealing with kids intent on humiliating her through sexual innuendo attracts the interest of 15-year-old Flamboy nt, allegedly half-Jewish and definitely a good student when she can spare time from taking drugs and turning tricks on the West Side Highway. She and Chana form a relationship that has moments of genuine tenderness, though Swados unsentimentally delineates its roots in Flamboy nt's lies and Chana's patronizing good intentions. The big revelation scene (think The Crying Game) is not exactly a stunning surprise, nor is Avi's apple-cartþupsetting visit to Harvey Milk, which prompts the predictable plot developments of the novel's second half. Swados is a capable writer, good at capturing the gaudy, wounded voices of Flamboy nt and her friends. The depiction of conflict between Chanaþs religious beliefs and her fondness for Harvey Milk's errant teens, however, is much less convincing; the author doesn't convey any great understanding of or sympathy for Orthodox Judaism, and an amusingly sexy portrait of virginal lust between Chana andAvi can't make up for the lack of a real moral alternative to the desperate nihilism of Flamboy nt's world. Nonetheless, smart observations and sharp character sketches make this worthwhile for serious fiction readers willing to tolerate some fundamental flaws. Problematic, but always pungent and at times penetrating. (Author tour)\ \
