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SHOE FETISH: A Woman's Odyssey of Love for Her Men and Her Shoes

5/31/2004

What does the style of shoe you like say about your choice in men?
The authors have created a sad yet warmly uplifting version of the time-honored transition into womanhood. Their sensitive portrayal of Carmen's resolute honesty and ultimate empowerment make for an enduring heroine and entertaining reading. Ms. Ellen Tanner Marsh, New York Times bestselling author

SHOE FETISH
By Sharon Bennett-Williams and Beatrice Moore-Harris.
Reviewed by: Ellen Tanner Marsh, New York Times bestselling author

What good are men when a woman can have shoes? According to Carmen Robertson, the central character in SHOE FETISH, dealing with the latter is infinitely less troubling. "Like shoes, men exude many styles and personalities," she tells us from the outset, "and like shoes, they do not all fit. Shoes also have no brains and neither do most men, or so little that they could fit in the heel of a basic pump."

Ouch. But Carmen has good reason for spending her days shopping for shoes and habitually dissing the opposite sex. As the narrator of this fictitious trek from girlhood to an older-but-wiser age, Carmen and her two best friends are subjected to every manner of unlikable ones (men, not shoes)--most of whom end up doing them wrong.

Carmen, Bethany and the inexplicably named TheLetter, grow up in the 1970s San Antonio, "land of the Spurs and the Alamo." Like most high school girls, they spend considerable time dating, talking and thinking about boys. But the boys and later the men who parade through their lives quickly prove disappointing, if not downright dangerous, as sex seems to be the only thing on their minds and they will stop at very little to get it.

Date raped by a boy she had come to care for, Carmen is impregnated and forced by her parents to undergo an abortion. Bethany and TheLetter also encounter their share of duplicitous and abusive men. Small wonder the trio prefers shopping to dating. As Carmen tells it, "I don't trust a man further than I can throw him. He may be Mr. Right today and Mr. Hyde tomorrow." And: "When we break up with a man, we go shopping. Our closets become graveyards of failed relationships, and the shoe boxes are like tombstones that serve as markers of the date and time of death."

But time eventually passes and the girls go their separate ways. TheLetter becomes a successful lawyer with a BMW and a sprawling mansion, although she shares it with a drunken, unemployed boyfriend Carmen calls "an unworthy bum." Bethany drops out of sight altogether while Carmen, a successful Atlanta dermatologist, gets married, divorced, and swears off men for good.

Not until their 20th high school reunion in San Antonio does the trio finally meet again. Bethany, a successful interior designer, is the only happily married one. Carmen, a single mother raising two children alone, has convinced herself she has no use for a man. TheLetter is still involved with her unworthy bum, who has cemented his hold on their relationship by fathering TheLetter's son Keon.

The high school reunion is a pivotal point in the novel. It is a night of reminiscing, bar-hopping and encounters with the violent death of one of the girls. Back in Atlanta, struggling to come to terms with the tragedy, Carmen grows convinced that, for her, happiness will always come with a price tag attached--like shoes.

But while life has taught her that most men "are a sorry sack of bones," she heeds at last the advice of Bethan's husband, Chad, who tells her that, "Sometimes you have to go through the whole barrel to find that special jewel." And eventually, cautiously, she gives her heart to the faithful Leon, who has hovered patiently at the periphery of her life and who just may be the jewel Carmen has been looking for.

In SHOE FETISH, Bennett-Williams and Moore-Harris have created a sad yet warmly uplifting version of the time-honored transition into womanhood. Their sensitive portrayal of Carmen's resolute honesty and ultimate empowerment make for an enduring heroine and entertaining reading.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sharon Bennett-Williams is an RN Case Manager with a major medical management company. She has a B.A. and a B.S.N. She has written short stories and poems, and has taken numerous writing courses since her teens. Currently residing in the Atlanta, GA area with her husband and two children, she continues her passion of writing. SHOE FETISH is her third published work. First was a poem entitled, "I Never Dreamed." It was published in True Reflections, and has won the 2001 Editor's Choice award. Her second work was, "THE L.E. BENNETT STORY: Living the Dream." A biography about her father's civil rights activities, and the ministry.

Beatrice Moore-Harris is a former mathematics teacher and school administrator, who currently works as an independent mathematics consultant. She has authored numerous math textbooks, but has realized a lifelong dream of authoring fiction with the publication of SHOE FETISH. She is a longtime resident of the Houston metroplex, and is the proud mother of three.