Flamboyánt /

Swados is an award-winning playwright as well as a novelist, and her theatrical know-how is evident in this spirited duet between a 15-year-old African American streetwalker, who calls herself Flamboyant, and her teacher, an Orthodox Jew named Chana Landeau. Chana, a 28-year-old virgin engaged to be married, accepts a teaching job at an alternative school in Manhattan, having no idea that Harvey Milk High is a refuge for some of the most outrageous of the city's lost teenagers: young gays and lesbians with severed family ties, risky hustles, and wicked senses of humor. While her students prance around like brightly plumaged birds, Chana cowers at the blackboard in her long skirt and prim blouse and worries that her work will compromise her pact with God. But her fears don't keep her from caring deeply about Flamboyant, especially after it's revealed that she is a he. As Chana and Flamboyant become enlightened and strengthened by their mutual respect and love, Swados' captivated readers will be moved to both laughter and tears. --Donna Seaman

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 clichés that attend a hackneyed plot. Flamboyánt, a homeless, 15-year-old prostitute‘vulnerable but guarded by her street smarts and acerbic charm‘encounters Chana, a naïve, 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 fiancé forbid her to consort with lowlife, begins to question what she sees as the hypocrisy of Orthodox Jewish law, Flamboyánt 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., Flamboyánt's dramatic efforts to stage her identity crisis in phrases like "I, Flamboyánt, 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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Noted 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 Flamboyánt, 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 Flamboyánt, a gifted, sexually ambiguous, 15-year-old prostitute who claims Jewish heritage. Deftly alternating between the diaries of Chana and Flamboyánt, 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 Flamboyánt 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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Playwright/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 fiancé.) 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 Flamboyánt, 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 Flamboyánt'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-cartŽupsetting 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 Flamboyánt and her friends. The depiction of conflict between ChanaŽs 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 and Avi can't make up for the lack of a real moral alternative to the desperate nihilism of Flamboyánt'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)