The Golden Girls

Have the matriarchs of the family saga lost their touch?

Published January 16, 2004 at midnight

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You knew them in the '70s. And you knew them well.

They were the gals with the golden touch, three women whose books didn't need a dashing spy or international intrigue to become blockbusters of the first degree.

Instead, theirs were books about women and family and the ripples their choices in life made in the generations that followed. They were Colleen McCullough, Belva Plain and Barbara Taylor Bradford.

In the years since their big hits, all three authors have continued to publish to large audiences, although none of their books has swept through the cultural imagination with the same force.

Last month, after years of writing historical fiction, McCullough returned to her roots with another generational tale. This month, Bradford offers the fourth sequel to her '70s blockbuster. And Belva Plain pens another family tale.

How do these books compare to the titles that launched these authors' careers?

Let's just say, the old gals ain't what they used to be.

Today we take a look.

The Touch

By Colleen McCullough (Simon & Schuster, 454 pages, $25.95).

Author best known for: The Thorn Birds (1977), the Aussie tale of forbidden love between a priest and young woman that spans three generations of the Cleary family and answers the question, "Can a really old guy love a really young gal in an era that pre-dates People magazine, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones?"

Why that story worked: A priest? A gorgeous lass? Fire and brimstone? Are you kidding?

New plot in a nutshell: The Touch takes place in Australia in 1872. Alexander Kinross, who has a chip on his shoulder the size of a cedar plank, leaves Scotland to find his fortune re-tracing the steps of his namesake, Alexander the Great. Because he is the smartest man in the universe and has the "lucky touch," he makes a Warren Buffett-size fortune.

He settles in New South Wales, modestly naming a town Kinross - after himself. Thinking that the folks in Scotland still care about what's happened to him (clearly, the man has never attended his high school reunion), he tries to impress everyone back home with his wealth by paying for his cousin Elizabeth's hand in marriage under the guise of wanting a good Scots wife. Elizabeth is, of course, strikingly beautiful, fragile and, at 16, a tiny bit too young for him. She doesn't warm to him because he looks like a church portrait of Satan.

After two difficult pregnancies, she and Alexander give the marital bed a rest. Forced to live a life of privileged isolation, Elizabeth befriends Alexander's mistress Ruby, the feisty former prostitute with a heart of gold. Ruby has a half-Chinese son Lee, who happens to be Elizabeth's age, and is the second smartest person in the universe. Plus, he doesn't look like Satan.

Can you guess where this is going? I won't kill it for you. And there is a (nonsensical) "surprise" ending.

What's wrong with this book? Between stereotypes and cliches and uninspired writing, just about everything. Take this snippet:

Ruby to her son Lee about Elizabeth: "You'll never be free of her, will you?"

"Never. She means more to me than my life does."

Eye roll, please.

Or, how about this politically incorrect gem, which passes as Lee's self-deprecating humor as he muses to himself about Elizabeth: "I have found a chink in her armor, he thought. A chink found by a Chink."

What's right about this book? I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Unlike The Thorn Birds, which put you so squarely on an Australian sheep farm that you could feel the heat, mud and flies, The Touch takes a historical time period and gives it modern sensibilities. For example, here's Ruby, the prostitute, talking to Nell Kinross, Alexander's daughter, about how Nell is unhappy in her medical studies because she's still a virgin at 22:

"You know what all the parts look like, you know how all the parts work. But you don't have a f-ing clue what life is all about because you don't live a life. You're a grind, Nell. A machine. . . ."

This at a time when going to the dentist could kill you.

Overall grade: D. Someone out there will like this book. You can give her or him my copy.

Marty Meitus

The Sight of the Stars

By Belva Plain (Delacorte Press, 311 pages, $25.95).

Author best known for: Evergreen (1978), the generational saga of Jewish immigrants that started the whole kit and caboodle of generational sagas of Jewish immigrants.

Why that story worked: It's Fiddler on the Roof without the music, Teyve or the czar but with the same themes of tradition and assimilation. And with 700 pages, Plain did not hop, skip and jump through the decades as she does with The Sight of The Stars.

New plot in a nutshell: Adam Arnring, whose immigrant Jewish father is eking out a living with a small grocery store, sets off to make his fortune in the West in 1907. He lands a job in a dry goods store - and surprise, surprise - has such brilliant ideas that he is able to turn the store into the most fashionable department store in the area. Along the way, he marries the fabulous Emma Rothirsch, has children and feuds with his brother Leo.

The book whirls through at least three generations in a little more than 300 pages.

My kids' baby books are longer.

What's wrong with this book? Everyone is brilliant, handsome, gorgeous - for a moment I thought, why, she must be describing my kids.

Here's a small example when Adam spots Emma: "At the corner he turned and looked back. There, wrapped in sunlight, the girl was sitting on the step. He had not really seen her hair until now . . . Why, it's russet, he thought. It's something you didn't often see. Green eyes, and this extraordinary hair! Perhaps bronze is a more accurate word? No, bronze has more brown in it. Russet is better. Russet."

In addition, the I-will-turn-this- shleppy-little-store-into-the-mecca-of-the-world has been done ad nauseum. Think Judith Krantz's Scruples or Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance.

The twist at the end is shocking to say the least (kidding, here). Ten minutes after I finished the book, I couldn't remember a thing about it.

What's right about this book? Plain has an easy, breezy style that makes the book suitable to read on the Stairmaster - no small thing when you're multitasking.

Overall grade: C. Mary Poppins had it right: Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, i.e., Plain's readable style covers for a tired plot and one-dimensional characters.

Marty Meitus

Emma's Secret

By Barbara Taylor Bradford (St. Martin's Press, 496 pages, $24.95).

Author best known for: A Woman of Substance (1979), the story of Emma Harte, a servant girl who is impregnated by the son of her wealthy employer, then abandoned. Poor and alone, Harte finds a job as a seamstress in an Orthodox Jewish clothing firm, eventually rising to become head of the world's finest department store and her own international business empire, Harte Enterprises.

Why the story worked: If the plot sounds cliche now, that's only because this novel inspired more knock-offs than a Bill Blass original . At the time of its publication, it set the standard in powerful-women sagas, painting a complex, fully fleshed-out portrait of Harte - likeable, yet ruthless enough when necessary to make her story deliciously intriguing.

New plot in a nutshell: This fourth sequel to Bradford's original (as if the first three weren't enough) begins as protagonist Evan Hughes' grandmother lies on her deathbed. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the old woman manages to blurt out one important message before she croaks. "Go to Emma," she tells her granddaughter. ". . . Emma Harte. In London. She has . . . the key. To your future."

Not one to buck formula story conventions, Evan complies. She travels to London, only to discover Emma Harte is dead. She decides to stick around anyway, landing a job at Emma's famed department store where everyone notices that - gasp - she looks amazingly like Paula Harte, Emma's granddaughter who is now running the store.

Why does Evan look just like Paula Harte? What is the lineage of this beautiful and talented girl who has appeared out of the blue?

And will you care enough to plow through these 496 incredibly bloated pages to find out?

We can't answer that. But here's a warning: The plot may sound simple, but the three-page list of characters at the beginning of the book, showing who's related to whom, is a hint that this won't be easy going.

What's wrong with this book: Where to begin? First, Bradford ties her prose in knots as her characters clumsily clue readers into the action that has come three books before, i.e.: "So he can't possibly be the son of Paul McGill, my grandfather! Because Paul McGill was already dead then. He died in 1939."

Take away these stilted conversations, and you have:

• Excruciatingly cliched scenes: " 'Come to me, Evan, come to me, darling.' Gideon could no longer control himself. Shudders convulsed him, and he gripped her body hard, pulled it tighter to him. They crested together on wave upon wave of pure, unadulterated joy.' "

• Impossibly perfect characters: "She was a complete Harte. She had inherited all of their characteristics . . . their toughness of mind, their loyalty and generosity, their spirit and energy, their many diverse talents, their capacity for backbreaking work."

• And so much blather about the sainted Emma Harte that it almost makes you wish the vaunted matriarch had died in childbirth.

On second thought, strike the almost.

What's right about this book: The snippet of poetry from T.S. Eliot on the page before the Prologue. (By the way, that rumbling you hear is the sound of Eliot rolling over in his grave - maybe not with a bang but certainly with more than a whimper.)

Overall grade: F. I also rated it by a more detailed criteria:

• 42 so-hokey-you-can't-believe-someone-wrote-this-with-a- straight-face moments;

• 51 cringe-worthy passages of dialogue;

• 7 unbelievably impossible coincidences;

• And 3 laugh-out-loud moments - including the time Bradford's WASPy characters throw the Yiddish word mishpocheh into their conversation.

On her Web page, Bradford notes that another sequel is in the works. Quick, someone call the literary police.

Patti Thorn

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