About the Author

Michael Lee West is the author of Mad Girls in Love, Crazy Ladies, American Pie, She Flew the Coop, and Consuming Passions. She lives with her husband on a rural farm in Tennessee with three bratty Yorkshire terriers, a Chinese Crested, assorted donkeys, chickens, sheep, and African Pygmy goats. Her faithful dog Zap (above) was the inspiration for a character in the novel.

Michael Lee West is the author of Mad Girls in Love, Crazy Ladies, American Pie, She Flew the Coop, and Consuming Passions. She lives with her husband on a rural farm in Tennessee with three bratty Yorkshire terriers, a Chinese Crested, assorted donkeys, chickens, sheep, and African Pygmy goats. Her faithful dog Zap (above) was the inspiration for a character in the novel.

Reviews

With young Bitsy Wentworth's nose-shattering blow to her philandering husband Claude's handsome face (motive: self-defense; weapon: frozen rack of baby back ribs), West launches this warm but overloaded chronicle of three generations of Southern female eccentricity and spunk. It's August 1972, and Claude is out cold, so Bitsy flees Crystal Falls, Tenn., with their baby, Jennifer, a move that will lose her custody of (though not contact with) her daughter while setting in motion her evolution from girl-wife to worldly interior decorator 20 years later. This follow-up to West's debut, Crazy Ladies, reunites readers with familiar characters, including Bitsy's mother, Dorothy McDougal-who from a Nashville mental institution wages a letter-writing campaign to Pat Nixon on Bitsy's behalf-and Dorothy's sister, Clancy Jane, a hippie cafe owner. Despite well-wrought moments of reconciliation between estranged women throughout (Jennifer's ultimate gesture of forgiveness for Bitsy is especially understated and touching), the novel bogs down in endless female feuding and repetitive male faithlessness (i.e., Claude; Bitsy's second husband, Louie; and Jennifer's almost-husband Pierre). Quirky minor characters and subplots overcrowd this 500-plus page novel, but when West focuses on the complexities of familial or romantic relationships, the novel is at its most heartfelt. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

In this sequel to Crazy Ladies, it's a few weeks later in 1972, and we're back with Dorothy, Clancy Jane, Bitsy, Violet, and Jennifer. A dramatic opening episode separates Bitsy from her baby daughter, Jennifer, and the novel follows this Tennessee family as they laugh and cry, love and lose for 22 years. Although not without its moments, the story lacks the punch of its predecessor and seems to struggle for its desired audience. (Scattered strong language may also affect readership.) Why do we know so little of Bitsy's ten years in London, and why does Violet just drift out of the novel? A shorter, tighter structure might have provided the focus this lacks. Unlike many Southern novels, there's no strong sense of place, although West tries to convey a feel for the times. But even Dorothy's unanswered letters to First Ladies can't energize this. Purchase only where West's several books enjoy a steady following. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/05.]-Rebecca Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.