Single White Female: Single White Female

Firstly, I have not seen the film adaptation of 'Single White Female' and so this review isn't tainted one way or the other. This book, about the stolen identity of a young woman by her psychotic flatmate, is written is very easy style. Characterizations, prose, and dialogue are all straightforward. I can understand why a film was made based on it since the book reads more like a screenplay than a novel. And the book's "feel" is anything but original. 'Sliver' by Ira Levin does a better job of capturing the essence of life (and danger) in Manhattan for a single, white female. Still, 'Single White Female' is an entertaining read. Bottom line: a very enjoyable, suspenseful read that doesn't tax the brain. Recommended.

After reading the review of this audiotape from Audiofile, I was disappointed I had purchased the cassette set - even used, thinking it would be a huge dud. I am not generally a Morgan Fairchild follower anyway, so I was doubtful. I went ahead and gave it a listen. No doubt readers at familiar with the big screen version of the book "Single White Female" which appears endlessly on cable stations and was quite good the first two or three times it played. The film followed the basic plotline of the novel but the two versions part company at approximately mid point and I found the audiobook thoroughly engrossing. Writer Lutz and reader Fairchild play Allie Jones as a much tougher, more aggressive woman and so the resulting weakening and final deterioration as her life is taken over by her strange flatmate is much more dramatic and horrifying. More than the film, the book has a Hitchockian texture to it as the body count (and the question as to Allie's guilt or innocence in those murders) is more intense. The basic differences I feel I can reveal without ruining this version for potential readers concern the detailed framing and subsequent arrest of Allie as well as greater involvement in the story of Graham the neighbor who hears more than he should while putting an ear to the duct work in the apartment above the SWFs. The last quarter of the book is a well-paced and exciting side story excluded from the film. It's just a thriller, and a "beach read" at that but listening while driving home one night, I got plenty of goosebumps. And so will anyone else who ever had to live with a roommate they thought was hell.