Lulu in Marrakech

From Publishers Weekly Fans of Johnson's NBA finalist Le Divorce will know what to expect: a fish-out-of-water story about a clash of cultures. Still, the tone and scope of this agreeable if quiet story owes more to the author's early work— Persian Nights , in particular—than the better-known ones about Franco-American culture clashes. Like that 1987 book, this one has more than a soupçon of politics thrown into its cultural comedy of manners. Lulu Sawyer is a CIA agent who arrives in Morocco, both to rekindle her romance with worldly English boyfriend Ian and to trace the flow of Western money to radical Islamic groups. She meets with characters both Western and Eastern, which allows for some typically Johnsonian observations ([Honor killing is] not so common among Algerians.... It's usually the Turks, opines one character). The book works best in small moments and in scenes involving the supporting characters, but the central plot—about Lulu and Ian's relationship—never quite catches fire, and Lulu-as-CIA-agent seems tired and unnecessary. Most fans will wade through the overdetermined plot to get to the sly asides and the astute observation that are and always have been Johnson's forte. (Oct.) Copyright ''© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine Though bearing the admirable fascination for culture clash that Johnson has made her signature over the years, Lulu in Marrakech is nonetheless problematic in its unbelievable protagonist, plot, and treatment of international issues. Lulu Googles refugee camps in the western Sahara and analyzes cocktail party gossip—her arsenal lacks fancy gadgets or files. The plots jumps implausibly from poolside flirtations to issues of kidnapping and torture, and Lulu's narration contains insensitivities to cultural distinctions that are possibly meant to highlight cultural stereotypes of American and Muslim women but instead come off as cartoonish. Finally, most critics noted that the novel lacks direction: is it a parable of U.S. foreign policy or culture clash, a love story, a thriller, or a comedy of manners juxtaposed with the world of terrorism and torture? While it succeeds in some of these genres, it fails to achieve them all. Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC