New Novel About Malta

[Richard Romeo]

from today's NY Times:

reading of "The Jukebox Queen of Malta" leads to the suspicion that Rinaldi 
himself was most strongly influenced by
Heller's "Catch-22." He gives us a character named Fingerly who engages in a 
gleeful commercial exploitation of the war, bringing to mind Heller's 
immortal Milo Minderbinder. But as "The Jukebox Queen of Malta" unfolds, it 
becomes clear that Rinaldi has pulled off far more than an imitation of an 
earlier novel. He uses a previously unexploited setting -- the island of 
Malta, controlled by the British, bombed by the Germans -- to chisel a 
funny, melancholy, romantic, disturbing, character-rich window on the war.
-------
well, Richard Bernstein's never heard of V. I guess.

rich


_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com