ahhh the 80s

Watching Dynasty and reading Sidney Sheldon is so revealing about the 80s. Both Dallas and Dynasty had storylines about mothers taking jobs (Pam and Fallon) and their husbands having trouble with it. And all the 80s trashy novels that I loved so much--they're ALL about feminism and capitalism.

Every book is about a young man or woman, often an immigrant, who rises from total poverty to become the head of a huge super-rich conglomerate, all because of their own genius and hard work and often some need to get revenge or "show someone". That's the history-rich backstory that starts in chapter 2.

The rest of the book focuses on the daughter of this genius, and how she inherits the empire, and has to fend off all sorts of baddies.

There's still a lot of romance, or focus on the importance of having a relationship; but owning, running, and ruling a massive empire is a key part of the identity of all the heroines. And pretty much ALL these books are about business empires, like Dallas and Dynasty--money money money was obviously on our minds in les 80s.

And sex of course. As Scottie in the Star Trek movie would say: "It's excitin'!"

the joys of a good old fashioned thriller

I didn't bring enough with me to Swissgirl's. I do have a graphic novel I could read, but I'm not really in the mood for that. I knew I'd finish today the Sidney Sheldon I brought on the bus coming home... so I... I bought another Sheldon book today at work. Even though I have hundreds of unread books at home. I couldn't help it!! It's not my fault!! (Breaks down sobbing.)

I devoured 3 Sheldon books in high school, but haven't read him since. I can visually remember sitting in bed, out of school cause I was recovering from wisdom tooth removal, reading Master of the Game. Oooh I lurved it. And I can picture myself standing in the school hall reading a thrilling courtroom scene in Rage of Angels. (Below are the covers my books had.)


The book I just read was Bloodline--I picked it up second hand somewhere, and check out the great 70s cover. The thriller aspect of the book held up, but it was comically dated in some ways. Every time we're introduced to a character, we're given a detailed description of their home decor. This is in part why the book was such a quick read... there were some very clear spots where I could skim!

Halfway through the book a great detective character shows up--he's a sort of an ugly Poirot, who speaks many foreign languages but with incomprehensible accents, and he's so good at using computers to research that he's described as having little gossips with them. Sheldon writes out conversations between him and the computers. I love this character, I wish he'd written a bunch of books featuring him! But I guess, like Caleb Carr, he didn't know a good detective when he invented one. Le sigh.


Here's the one I just bought.