Queen of the Underworld

October 10, 2005
In the summer of 1959, plucky North Carolinian Emma Gant escapes overbearing parents to begin her career as a reporter at the Miami Star
. Lodged at the colorful Julia Tuttle Hotel (a fictional Florida property named after Miami's real-life founder), Emma meets a group of Cuban families who've recently fled Fidel Castro. Emma spends her days learning the ropes as a reporter and her nights bantering (in broken Spanish) with the eclectic group of exiles. She also arranges rendezvous with her married lover, Paul, an innkeeper largely responsible for her decision to move South. Godwin, a three-time National Book Award nominee, taps into her experiences as a fledgling Florida journalist to render a tale whose ambling, amiable plot is redeemed by a cast of memorable characters. Among them are an arms-smuggling dentist, a diminutive German perfumer, a nefarious reporter with an "overall gleaming effect," and a distinguished academic who flees Cuba with his memoir stitched into his wife's wedding dress. Topping the list of provocative personalities is Ginevra Brown, aka the Queen of the Underworld, a former Miami madam once betrothed to a mobster. Readers who can't get enough Godwin can snap up the first installment of her two-volume memoir, The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961–1963
, also due out this month (and reviewed on p. 44).

September 15, 2005
Emma Gant is smart, regal, and ambitious. In spite of a rough childhood, she has graduated from the journalism program at Chapel Hill, and scored a plum job at the " Miami Star" . It's 1959 and although "career women" are highly suspect, Emma, as confident about her womanly allure as she is about her journalistic skills, is set to take Miami by storm. She has some stiff competition, however, from an actual hurricane and a tidal wave of upper-class Cuban refugees fleeing Castro. But the hurricane allows her to meet someone she is intensely curious about, the Queen of the Underworld, a "Georgia fruit-stand beauty" turned Mafia darling and madam. And thanks to Tess, a close friend of her mother's who works with a Cuban dentist on a secret mission far more dramatic than filling cavities, Emma finds herself surrounded by a group of lively and intriguing Cubans. Emma also has a secret mission, a love affair with a prominent married man. Shrewdly observant, Godwin's goddess-in-the-making quickly learns how to go with the flow in a radiant bildungsroman that is kin to Ward Just's " An Unfinished Season" (2004), albeit far more blithe and optimistic. A master stylist with a dozen novels to her credit, Godwin has never written more voluptuously, nor had as much fun with a character or setting. Readers will want to search for the autobiographical inspiration for this ravishing novel in Godwin's early journals, which are due out soon. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)

April 3, 2006
Though our protagonist's Southern accent varies in thickness from one chapter to another, Zimbalist generally gives a professional reading of this scantily clad autobiographical novel set in 1950s Miami. Recent college grad Emma Gant escapes her nasty stepfather and follows her married lover to Miami, where she begins work on the Miami Star
. Here we encounter a host of eccentrics: the miserable Queen of the Underworld (a serially suicidal one-time madam) the married boyfriend and his wife; a Jewish Mafioso;, a personalized perfume scent entrepreneur; and Cuban exiles exporting munitions as "dental equipment." Zimbalist handles Spanish well, distinguishing between the anti-Castro Cubans and Emma's own awkward attempts at the language. But there are so many oddball characters that we are sometimes aware of her straining to give each a distinctive voice and flavor. Despite her efforts, the plot is too rambling and the characters too disparate to finally gel into a novel. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 10, 2005).