Fiction Journal.

BOOKS & reading; FICTION; SUSPICIOUS River (Book); KASISCHKE, Laura, 1961-; I Was Amelia Earhart (Book); EARHART, Amelia, 1897-1937; MOTELS

This article presents information on several fiction books. One of them is "Suspicious River," by Laura Kasischke, and other is "I Was Amelia Earhart," by Jane Mendelsohn. Twenty-four-year-old Leila is an unlikely prostitute. A neat, quiet receptionist at the Swan Motel, she is married to a pinball salesman and wears shirts with, lace around the collar. Leila is driven by something entirely outside the bounds of predictability, and her voice sometimes crumples under the weight of its own poetry. The mystery of Amelia Earhart's disappearance is the subject of Jane Mendelsohn's first novel. Whether Earhart lived or died is of secondary importance to Mendelsohn, who basks in the dreamy, terrifying magic of a plane roaring through the sky, then falling a mile to the sea.