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New & Noteworthy
March 2001 Atlantic
Those who found the succès fou of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones books too fou for their taste may yet appreciate Cause Celeb. This novel is not just for the Melissa Bank set but will also satisfy those who have graduated to Diane Johnson and Francine Prose. How ironic, then, that Fielding wrote Cause Celeb before Bridget Jones's Diary, and published it, in 1994, in Britain (although it is only now coming out in the United States, the book has sold more than half a million copies in the UK and Europe). Bridget Jones's many fans will recognize a prototype of their heroine in Cause Celeb's narrator and protagonist, Rosie Richardson. Rosie quickly tires of self-absorption and neurotic romance with a glamourous Londoner, and throws herself into famine relief in Africa. She is not so naive, however, as to try to escape her past, and ultimately the two strands of the tale become one. Rosie displays a keen sense of humor whether she is rubbing shoulders with show-biz personalities or muddling along in the refugee camp—and isn't humor exactly the quality that would enable a person to get through either situation more or less sane? Don't worry: Cause Celeb doesn't play famine relief for laughs—or fawn over fashionable people who do their bit to help. This is a deft, subtle, admirable, pleasurable book. —Barbara Wallraff
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