Francine Prose

We have to admit that we came rather late to the Francine Prose bandwagon. Maybe it was her name, which somehow suggested to us cat mysteries or droll little English parlor comedies. We are, however, big enough to admit when we’ve made a mistake. Prose’s Blue Angel, a dark comedy that mined the fatuous culture of university writing programs and sexual shenanigans in academia, got us hooked, and landed a National Book Award nomination to boot. In delving further into Prose’s backlist–which dates back thirty years–we were pleased to discover that many of her books were even better. She’s that rare writer who can pull off biting satires about mores and morons while maintaining a genuine affection for her characters, however confused, misguided, or tangled in their delusions they may be. Her latest novel, A Changed Man, is the story of an erstwhile skinhead who volunteers his services to a nonprofit run by a Holocaust survivor, ostensibly, he says, “to save guys like me from becoming guys like me.” It’s a classic Prose premise, and we certainly wouldn’t expect much in the way of deadly earnestness.