Cup of Love

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Insipid characters and contrived plot devices plague White's weak second novel (after Fed Up with the Fanny). Set in Columbus, Ohio, it follows the adventures of two African-American best friends in their 30s, Vance and Ethan, and their respective love interests, Artise and Tassha. Both men have problems with fidelity--Vance has been caught cheating on Artise three times in a decade, and Ethan left Tassha immediately after proposing to her in order to focus his romantic attentions on less challenging targets, WWKs ("women with kids"). When Vance is deeded money and property by an older, kindly benefactor, he decides to turn his life around by proposing marriage to the pregnant Artise and using his windfall to open an African-American cultural museum in downtown Columbus. This plan puts him at odds with rich, corrupt developer Ronald Tenner, who wants to use the same spot to open a for-profit prison. Vance struggles with his new life revolve around familiar issues: Can he continue to be worthy of Artise's renewed trust? Can he convince Ethan to give up his promiscuous behavior? In the book's simple worldview, the main characters don't evolve or develop; instead, spiritual revelations change them into cardboard cutouts mouthing religious platitudes. By employing this deus ex machina technique, White leaves little room for surprise; it's clear from beginning to end that good deeds will be rewarded, and bad ones punished. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A heavy dose of cheerleading for God from a writer often considered a presenter of role models for African-Americans (Fed Up With the Fanny, 1998). As characters, the men here are strong types with a vulnerable sex drive that often gets them into places they don't belong; the women are the moral center of the tale and require regular sexual "maintenance." "She had explained over the phone to Ethan that it was time for maintenance—the legendary supreme oil change, complete with filter and pressure check," says one of them (the automotive metaphor captures the level of imagination and originality here). Vance, the story's hero, has cheated on Artise, his girl of eight years, once too often, so that, just when he comes into a huge gift of money, Artise is shy about marriage. Then Vance hears God, and with the cash and his efforts to win Artise's trust, he's marriageable. Vance's best friend Ethan, recently returned to Columbus, Ohio, gads about town in the usual ways until God literally speaks to him and tells him to apologize to Tassha for having left her waiting at the altar. Ethan—hired by Vance to help with a museum he's planning—now has the cash and God, and he and Tassha are restored. Meanwhile, Artise is pregnant with Vance's child, and while working out issues with her mother, agrees to marry the baby's father. The two certify their Christian rectitude by marrying on the front lawn of Vance's new, sumptuous, five-acre, seven-bedroom estate. The bad guys lose in the end, and all who love God come out ahead financially and with true love to boot. Such predictability, it seems, is in keeping with a narrative aim of providing "positive role models." Socially andculturally, White's morality play may be a useful intervention, but as a novel it's little more than baling wire and string.