MIRA, $5.99, ISBN 1-55166-861-0
Contemporary Romance, 2001 (Reissue)
Sarah’s Child features an asshole behaving badly and our heroine actually begging him for forgiveness. It’s like all those soap operas I used to watch on daytime TV, like that Japanese series where our heroine was raped by an evil man and she is then abandoned by her husband (who can’t take the dishonor, oh the pain, oh, oh, oh… say, who was raped again, he or she?) who then dallied with other women as she slaved, got raped some more, got sacked, got raped some more, got a new job, got raped again, and finally, by the 400th episode, she makes up with the ex-husband and all is well again. I actually contemplated smashing the TV screen then.
Rome is our hero, Sarah is our heroine. Rome is blue because his family is now playing harps and floating on clouds in the heavens. Sarah, who has loved him for soooooo long, marries him when Rome decides that he wants to boink her. She agrees with him: no babies. Rome can’t take any more pain, and the world must bend over backwards so that he must never feel pain again.
But, of course a baby must happen, and now Rome hates Sarah. How can Sarah do this to him? Doesn’t she know that he can’t take this? He can’t be hurt. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
Sarah understands. She toils alone, taking care of her pregnancy on her own. She tries to make Rome see things her way, baby, please, baby, baby, oh, baby, answer me baby, please don’t do this baby… baby… baby? In the end, lightning strikes, burning down the trailer Sarah and Rome are living in and its occupants to ashes. No, I made that up. Sarah forgives Rome for leaving her in her time of needs. She understands. She loves him.
Dammit, how did I end up in this backward, smelly trailer park area? Where’s the bus stop? I’m leaving for classier places.This contrived tale is created solely to bring out all the eek-eek-eek melodrama of a woman suffering. And suffering for what? There’s nothing here that can’t be solved by giving that self-absorbed pity-party male twit a kick in the butt. Or ten sleeping pills with his night time coffee.
