Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 14

THE EDMONTON JOURNAL, Saturday, July 16, 1988 B4 Books EDITOR: James Adams, 429 5358 Manhattan tales miss as potboiler Soviet methods old and new explored Bitterness of Stalin era recalled People Like Us By Dominick Dunne Crown, 403 pp. $26.95 By IAN McGILLIS Dominick Dunne could write great trash if only he didn't overshoot the mark. The author of The Two Mrs. Grenvilles has a proven flair for fast-moving, undeniably entertaining, and utterly superficial stories of Manhattan's upper crust. The trouble is that he seems to fancy himself a modern-day Edith Wharton or Henry James, chronicling and crit-cizing a closed society from within.

The resulting mix of paperback potboiler technique and hardcover high-flown ambition makes People Like Us a dubious hybrid a mule that doesn't even kick. In common with what seems like half the novels published these days, People Like Us deals with New York and money. The setting is the Upper East Side, the players range from hidebound Old Money burghers to obnoxious provincial gatecrashing billionaires, and the suspense comes from wondering which of the beautiful people will take a tumble and when. Will it be Lil Altemus, the family empire matriarch too imperious to notice the gay son under her nose? Will it be Elias Renthal, the crass airline tycoon and inside trader driven by his social-climbing wife to enter a world where he'll never be welcome? Will it be Gus Bailey, the enigmatic journalist secretly obsessed with avenging the murder of his daughter? Will. well, you get the idea.

In fiction according to Dunne, character equals ambition. Complexity isn't allowed a look in as these ambitions are inexorably pursued. The obstinate predictability with which Dunne sets his stock figures on their well-worn paths is the source of much unintentional amusement, and there is a certain vicarious kick in seeing greed and vanity slowly deflated. Moreover, Dunne's mastery of many elements of the pulp esthetic never sticking with one plot thread for more than a few pages at a time; inserting a sex scene whenever interest begins to flag; periodically hinting at violence is perversely admirable. By MARUSIA PETRYSHYN In 1931 16-year-old Suzanne Rosenberg boarded an ocean liner in Montreal with her mother, brother and a group of Canadian communists enroute to the Soviet Union to "build Almost 50 years later she returned to Canada the only member of her family to have survived.

Rosenberg does not set out to analyze and theorize about the Stalinist epoch. Rather she offers a detailed and gripping descrip-. tion of her own experience. As a result, A Soviet Odyssey is a profound condemnation of Stalinism and of the silence and hypocrisy that still mark its treatment in the world today. Rosenberg starts by describing systematically her early life in Canada including a teenage relationship with famed poet Irving Layton and her later involvement as an Intourist guide and translator in the Soviet Union.

But it is when she begins to describe the transformation of Soviet society into an "ugly jungle with each beast for himself, each saving his skin according to his own lights" that she gives us a powerful taste of living in a ruthlessly oppressive society. Despite perceiving herself as apolitical, she herself is arrested in 1950 during one of the many waves of terror and mass execution, this one being against "cosmopolites." Stalin's strategy of isolating the Soviet Union from the West involved a systematic persecution of all who had the least sympathy or tolerance for Western ideas, or the least contact with any Westerner. It included a vicious anti-semitic campaign and an attack on intellectuals. Rosenberg's husband, a Jewish journalist for a Soviet navy publication, Krasny Flot, was murdered 16 months after his arrest. His only crime was being Jewish.

Her mother, a devout communist to the end, also died in a Soviet labor camp. Rosenberg bitterly comments that her husband's interrogator and murderer "may be living now in respectable Dominick Dunne upper crust tales The works come undone, however, when Dunne attempts something that the Judith Krantzes of the world would never dream of trying that is, placing the action in a broad "moral" context. The faintly anti-materialist persepective is undermined by the undisguised glee with which peoples' possessions are described and name-checked. The effect is not so much "Look at this decadence!" as "Don't you wish you had all this?" (This perhaps shouldn't be surprising, as Dunne is an editor at Vanity Fair, that glorified gos- -sip sheet for money groupies.) What's more, the agents of criticism chiefly the homosexual Hubie and his malcontent sister Justine are themselves so one-dimensional that one comes to prefer their less savory counterparts, whose intentions, however slimy, seem somehow more honest. The entertainment-versus-art struggle in People Like Us must come out in favor of the former for most, because this book currently gazes disdainfully from atop bestseller lists world-wide.

Still, seekers after the perfect thought-free sun-deck reading experience are best advised to stick with the trusty triumvirate of Collins, Steele, and Krantz. With some Edith Wharton thrown in for balance, of course. Ian McGillis is station manager ofCJSR-FM. A Soviet Odyssey By Suzanne Rosenberg, Oxford University Press, 207 $24.95 retirement in a dacha near Moscow, enjoying a better pension than any Soviet working man, never fearing that he and others like him will be brought to justice." Rosenberg describes clearly and eloquently her life in prison, in a "strict-regime camp" and in a labor camp. She points out the absolute cynicism of the system that in 1947-53 rearrested the surviving innocent victims of the terror of 1937-38 to prevent them from besmirching the good name of the Party and to provide penal labor for new building projects.

At that time also the security apparatus considered a Jewish citizen's survival of a Nazi death camp to be mcrirninating enough to send her to a Soviet labor camp. A number of her insights about interrogators, camp commandants and her own colleagues illustrate the role simple human greed and denial of responsibility play in supporting the totalitarian nightmare. She describes how the empty desks of the victims of the terror of '37 and '38 were quickly filled by functionaries happy for promotion, eagerly taking part in the denunciation campaigns that then swept them up in turn. One of her interrogators a "decent was not a political fanatic but played his role in the death machine for a better apartment, a fur coat, a vacation, and a privileged education and jobs for his children. Rosenberg's memoir, in is a powerful statement and description of the mechanisms of Stalinist terror and its consequences for Soviet citizens.

It cannot be ignored by students of the history of the U.S.S.R. nor by those involved in current issues involving the Soviet Union, be it glasnost or making deals with the Soviet security apparatus for the prosecution of war criminals. EdmoDtonian Marusia Petry-shyn is on leave from her law practice er, Alexander Dubcek, had taken over. Thus, it can be argued, glasnost depends on the whim of a narrow group of people, that is, the Politburo.) Glasnost is a tool Gorbachev is using to promote his ideas of political reconstruction (perestroi-ka). It is a nice departure from tradition, the book points out: Gorbachev deploys his media as his shock troops, with persuasion, indoctrination and education as their weapons, instead of the terror once used to force change on the Soviet people.

Gerol and Molyneux take myth after popular myth about today's Soviet Union media system, then ruthlessly dissect them to expose the naked truth of the cynical manipulation of both the Soviet people and Western public opinion. Unlike most books about the Soviet Union by Westerners writing in the comfort of their Western homes, or in the relative comfort of the foreigners' ghetto in Moscow, The Manipulators provides a very up-to-date, as well as unique, inside look. Gerol was allowed to come back to the Soviet Union as an Ottaw a Citizen journalist in 1987, to cover the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Great October Socialist Revolution, an event that brought the communists to power in the first place. He managed to renew some cf his friendships and add the newest information to a manuscript already packed with facts most Westerners would find unnervingry bizarre. Molyneux's role was to provide the angle that would represent the inquisitive Western media's questions.

What he did was outline the The mechanisms of terror under Stalin, above, are examined in Susan Rosenberg's personal memoir, while the role of the media under Gorbachev, below, is probed by two journalists. Journalists clarify Soviet media role 1. World's End. Boyle 2. Memory of Fire, Galeano 3.

Generation of Swine, Thompson 4. The Radiant Way, Drabble 5. Sixes Sevens, Yeoman 6. The Bear's Toothache, McPhail 7. Whipping Boy, Fleischman 8.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Saint 9. The Power of Myth, Campbell 10. Capote, Clarke The Manipulators: Inside the Soviet media By llya Gerol and Geoffrey Molyneux Stoddart, 201 By PETER ADLER Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has changed the style of operation of the Soviet media, not their role, this new and useful book by two Canadian journalists sets out to prove. And prove it it does. The fact that one of the authors, Dya Gerol (now an Ottawa Citizen foreign affairs analyst), used to be a high-ranking Soviet journalist, with access to the Kremlin corridors of power, definitely helped.

And as the other author, Vancouver Province's political columnist, Geoffrey Molyneux, had enough wisdom to stay in the background and let Gerol's experiences appear in a first-person narrative, the result has an air of authenticity rarely observed in the many books currently on the market debating the new Soviet phenomenon. The authors' point of departure is that swifter reporting, done under the direction of the Communist Party Central Committee's propaganda department, does not really constitute freedom of the press. Glasnost, they say, is not a kind of Western liberalism, or a variety of legal laissez-faire (To prove this point they need not have gone far: Glavlit, the Soviet censorship office, has seen its role somewhat limited in the last three years. Vet, it still very much exists. That, for example, was not the case in Czechoslovakia 20 years ago, here the censorship office was abolished by law within weeks after then-lead Political By DOUGLAS BARBOUR Dennis Jones loves Armageddon and why shouldn't be? It's paid off for him in the proverbial spades.

A London, Oiit. resident. Jones first broke big in 1983 with Rubicon One. in which the two superpowers nearly came to final blows over the Middle East In his latest and most complex noveL be returns to that part of the world for at least part of the narrative. And why not? As headLnes demonstrate diry, that region is and will remain the hot tot of political bot spot.

W'mter Palace seems destined to make Jones aa international star. It's already been sold in Britain, haS; Germany. Japan, the United Siaies. even Ru a It's set in a hai-J world of 193 where a new you. prestigious Harborfront Reading Series in Toronto July 26 is Edmonton novelist Mary Walters Riskin.

Riskin, you may recall, won the 1987 Writers Guild of Alberta award for excellence in writing (novel category). Incidentally, Harborfront's Wang International Festival of Authors this fall will feature Margaret Atwood, George Konrad, Salman Rushdie, Penelope Lively, Saul Bellow, Jay Mclnerney and Antonio Callado, among others. EDMONTON'S RECENTLY relocated Latitude 53 gallery is holding literary readings the second Wednesday of each month. Interested participants should submit eight to 10 pages of recent work, along with a brief resume, to the gal-lerv. 10137 104th St.

Phone 423-5353. OCTOBER II is the deadline for entries to the $22,500 CBC Radio Literary Competition, now in its 10th year. Judges include Norman Lerine and Adele Wiseman (short fiction), Gary Geddes and Ralph Gustafson (poetry) and Jane Buss and Ronald Bryden (radio drama). First prize in each category is $3,000. Submissions should be mailed to Robert Weaver, CBC Radio Drama Features.

Box 500, Stn. Toronto. Ont. M5W 1E6. For info, call (416) 975-5998 or 975-6001.

TWO NEW LITERARY journals have recently crossed my desk. One, Other Voices, is published in Edmonton by a four-woman collective and focuses on "the many facets of women's life experience." Contributors of poetry and short fiction include Shirley Senivs. Mary Woodbury. Alice Major, Dr. Culk-ne Bry ant and Vanna Tesster.

Deadline for entries for the fall issue you don't have to be female to submit is AuU5t 15 164th St, Edmonton T5R 2PV) You can find copies of Other Voices at most of the cty's independent booksellers. Secrets from the Orare Couch is in KiHam (T0B 2LO) and celebrates, thrsce yearly, "new and innovative poetry and fiction. Contributors to its 40-page sprrg issue include Joan Crate. Beth Monroe I ML Roberta ReevWBaJJey and Sparling Milk. James Adam Notes to READINGS: The ever-energetic Ledges Publishing Society has organized two count 'em, tw5 readings of original prose and poetry by Edmonton authors for the final two weeks of this month.

On Friday, July 22 Sharon Carlson, Ky Perraun and Gail Sidonie Sobat appear at Common Woman BooksThe Radical Bookseller, 8724 109th starting at 7:30 p.m. On the 26th authors Ron Kurt, Carolyn Pogue Czamecki and John Csemy read at the Blue Nile Ethiopian and European Restaurant, 82nd Avenue and 109th Street, beginning at 8 p.m. All readings are free. Reading at the Shelley Russell's review of Fiction Paperbacks resumes August 13. thriller certainly at least as good as the last Two.

Dei th ton, to my mind, remains the supreme master of this kind of international intrigue, mostly because of his rich characterizations and his wit. But, though less sexually obsessed, Jones is as in te Urgent as FolJetl and he's much more succinct than the often garrulous, even tedious Ludhim. Combining plausibility with -provocabihty," inter Palace packs twice the punch into about half the space of a Ludlum opus. Jones novel, in short, is summer read rg as it's meant to be. Take it to the beach and make sure you put on kts of sunscreen; by the time you let your nose out of this one.

yon EL'ght be burned to a crisp. 'Dcvdas Barbour teaches Enft-Ji at the n. uTs. nf Alberta manoeuvres spice quite chilling bock, debunking the new set of naive, popular myths that would consider Gorbachev's brand of communism as less sinister, less dangerous than that of his predecessors. Journal copy editor Peter Adler studied international politics in Czechoslovakia and the USSR.

summer to bomb Israel out of existence before he journeys to the great Fatherland in the sky. Poor Sam Cole. He's been out of the CIA for years now but he's the only person his Russian contacts trust and he knows the Middle East as few other do. What can the agency do but coerce the guy back into the underground war where be will bring out the bad news from Russia, then link Bp with Mossad operativei to try to stop the loony Nazi AH this, of course, is just what today's thnlkr readers expect of the genre and Jones the them precisely what they're for. Reviewers already have corrpared him to Den ton.

FoBett and Lud'um and tk be can't touch the first, be is areas Westerners misunderstand the most That determined the structure of the book. Then, he would ask questions that Gerol would answer in his narrative. (Don't fear, those questions do not appear in the book. The answers do.) The result is a very useful, highly readable and sometimes Winter Palace By Dennis Jones Stoddart, 348 $1 9.S5. ensue scenes that alone would make a good thnDer but Jones is out for much larger game.

His forte is assembling planet-wide crises. Thus, even as the Palace program program is about to be loosed. Islamic fundamentalists take power in Syria, thus cranking up the tension between the Arab states and Israel In the meantime, an ex SS officer has been aid-irg and ahrtting the MasLm Brotherhood, seeking to use them to rid the ortd of as many Jews as possible. New dvaut of cancer, he wants young American president faces a new old and extremely repressive Stalinist chief in the USSR. The actual story begins in 1953, shortly after the death of the great tyrant, when one of Beria's KGB operatives trie to flee Russia with information on a startling plan to resolve "the Jewisa problem" in the Soviet Union, a plan code named Winter Palace.

He doesn't make it but the yourjg Russian Jew who kills him daring the escape attempt finds, then hides the microfilm. Thirty-seven years later that man, now a reflected Russian scholar, seeks the md of an ex-OA operative to get word of the plan's revival out to the Free orld. Chase scenes quickly ft.