Mad Girls in Love

Overview

In her colorful first novel, Crazy Ladies, Michael Lee West brought to life three generations of unforgettable G.R.I.T.S. (Girls Raised In The South), creating a world the Washington Post Book World called "sharp, wry, and utterly convincing." In Mad Girls in Love she's brought some of the Ladies back and also added a whole new wacky and lovable cast. You'll want to join them for a glass of sweet tea or punch spiked with pure grain alcohol and get the real gossip. At the center of the group is Bitsy, a self-proclaimed girly-girl who "couldn't name the presidents in order, but ... knew the name and manufacturer of every lipstick and eye shadow in Rexall Drugs." Mad Girls in Love follows Bitsy from our first glimpse of her as an eighteen-year-old wife and mother on the lam with her baby daughter through two decades as she develops into a worldly blond beauty. Michael Lee West writes about the women of Crystal Falls, Tennessee, and their men with the expertise of a down-home cook who knows just how much hot sauce to add so the cornbread isn't too sweet.

Editorial 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. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Michael Lee West

Michael Lee West is the author of Crazy Ladies, American Pie, She Flew the Coop, and Consuming Passions. She lives with her husband in a renovated funeral home outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Donýt miss the next book by your favorite author.

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Additional Info

Imprint

HarperCollins

Filesize

1.93 MB

Number of Pages

544

eBook ISBN

9780061160035