In a post-Sex and the City world, any novel that follows a career woman through the trials and tribulations of love in New York City instantly draws comparison to the popular Candace Bushnell TV show, novel and soon-to-be movie. Despite the inevitable comparisons, readers of Jill A. Davis' novel "Girls' Poker Night" should expect something a little bit different than the Carrie Bradshaw formula.
Davis, a veteran writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, and a five-time Emmy nominee, serves up a rather standard chick-lit novel. At first, the story seems to parallel Sex and the City to an almost laughable extent -- our slightly cynical and romantically-challenged heroine Ruby Capote works as a newspaper columnist (sound familiar?) in Boston who transfers to New York to escape a dead-end relationship with her boyfriend Doug. Once in New York, Ruby engages in weekly poker matches with her girlfriends where they discuss work, family and (obviously) the men in their lives.
Ruby uses these weekly gab sessions to rehash and analyze the details of her flirtation with Michael, the editor for her relationship column, "Single Girl on the Edge/Ledge/Verge." The witty banter of these poker games provides the majority of the comic fodder for the novel, as well as the forum for the reader to learn about the true roots of Ruby's trust issues with the opposite sex -- most notably, her experiences with her father's abandonment of their family.
Ruby, always quick with a joke or a witty comeback, uses her humor to avoid any sort of confrontation that would demand an emotional response. The majority of Ruby's development as a character is devoted to forcing her to open up to true happiness, possibly with her editor, Michael. Davis also provides an entertaining look into the newsroom realm, illustrating this world and its inhabitants with a healthy dose of irony. After all, Davis herself is a media veteran, and she also utilizes the newsroom setting to further complicate the office romance between Ruby and her editor.
Ruby's career provides an interesting framework for the novel's layout, but it's a framework that proves ultimately unsatisfying. Instead of standard
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