Side Effects: A New Orleans Love Story - Hardcover

Friedmann, Patty

3.24

68 ratings by Goodreads

9781593760960: Side Effects: A New Orleans Love Story

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1593760965 ISBN 13: 9781593760960

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2005

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N.O. Drugstore is located at the improbable intersection of South Claiborne Avenue and South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. Its idiosyncratic clientele draws as much from mostly poor-black Pigeontown as it does from the mostly rich-white University section. And no one knows this better than the three people who man the pharmacy on even days of the month. As different in style and temperament as their customers, Luciana Jambon, Lennon Israel, and Vendetta Greene are the protagonists of this story. Told in third person from their alternating points of view, Side Effects plays out their respective family feuds, usually somewhere between the Seasonal Specials and the Depends aisles. Corralled as they are with one another twelve hours a day, romance and splendid friendship blossom among Luciana, Lennon, and Vendetta, because it’s really only a low counter that separates them from everyone else.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Friedman's charming story (after Secondhand Smoke) of the unlikely affection among three diverse co-workers at a New Orleans pharmacy also now reads as a tribute to a unique American city that will never be the same. N.O. Drugstore employees Luciana Jambon, Lennon Israel and Vendetta Greene enjoy a friendship that binds and buoys them as they deal with pandemonium at work and overbearing families at home. Beautiful, plump pharmacy manager Luciana (aka Ciana) doesn't get the same respect from her family—her older brother and sister-in-law—that she does from her colleagues. Lennon, who is just shy of his pharmacy doctorate, is smitten with Ciana despite her age (his senior), race (white) and weight (200 pounds). Vendetta Greene, a pharmacy assistant, single mom and Ciana's best friend, is constantly barraged at home by her two freeloading sisters. When a tragedy leaves Ciana reeling, Lennon and Vendetta are there for her. Lennon's love for Ciana deepens as he supports her in her time of need and works to unravel the mystery of her mother's death. Awkwardly written but with Southern flare, Friedmann's tale depicts three idiosyncratic characters who discover that together they can face and overcome adversity. (Jan.)
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From School Library Journal:

Adult/High School–Friedmann continues to write about the curious mix of beauty and squalor that has distinguished the city. Her latest novel takes readers to the N.O. Drugstore at the corner of South Claiborne and South Carrollton, where in-your-face black Pigeontown residents and condescending white Tulane students collide. Here, pharmacist Ciana Jambon dispenses prescriptions for a wide-ranging population as the quiet drama of her life unfolds against the daily spectacle of her environment. Her two cohorts, Vendetta Greene and Lennon Israel, are also her closest friends and see her through bitter exchanges with her older brother and his grasping wife and her grief when her mother dies suddenly. To complicate matters, the death has an air of mystery around it: Cianas sister-in-law had taken Mother Jambon to New York for a weekend visit and is less than forthcoming about all that occurred there. The story is by turns humorous and heartbreaking, and the author is adept at capturing that quirky combination of love and resentment that characterizes so many families. Friedmanns themes of sibling rivalry and unlikely friendships will linger with readers.–Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Library System, VA
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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