Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 1, 1993 TAG: 9305010143
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by JOAN SCHROEDER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"God. I've gone and turned into my mother. Even down to the shoes I wear. I can't believe this is me. Standing here looking in the mirror. It's no wonder Flick wants to leave me. When did all this happen? This great transformation from nymph to, well, to this. And why am I just noticing it for the first time? Where have I been?"
Former Watermelon Queen 1976, Miss Peach Queen 1977, even Miss South Carolina: Pammy is the quintessential beauty queen pushing middle age, living out her Miss-America dreams in her daughter Evie. The problem is, Evie's poised on the edge of adolescence; she's taken to shaving her eyebrows and wearing lots of black. Panny can no longer rely on her daughter to say the right thing when judges ask her personality questions like "If you had a million dollars, what would you spend it on?"
These days, Evie's less likely to say she'd give it all to charity than to tell the truth: that she'd use the money to get her daddy to come back home.
Pammy's husband, Flick, is in the middle of his own mid-life crisis, having quit his job as an ace salesman to return to graduate school in the hope of becoming an English professor. There's a pretty, smart co-ed in the picture, and some sarcastic deconstructionist colleagues with whom Flick has begun attending out-of-town poetry conferences on weekends.
Pammy takes Evie and drives north to New Jersey, where her mother waits at the door with "I told you so" written all over her face. A few surprises await her: a too-good-to-be-true lover; the slow revelation of her misplaced energies and her mother's before her; and a growing sense of self-confidence which quite literally takes her flying over the New Jersey landscape.
"Summer Gloves" is saved from overfamiliarity by its author's sense of humor.
Sarah Gilbert is a very funny writer, and smart enough to poke fun at her first-person narrator without being condescending. This doesn't preclude serious intent - Gilbert considers the puzzling mother-daughter bond, the rigged world of beauty pageants, and the nature of marriage - and even if there are no earth-shattering revelations by the book's end, it's still a fun trip.
If you've read Sarah Gilbert's first two novels, "Hairdo" and "Dixie Riggs," you know what to expect from her latest. Given that you and your mother are on good terms, "Summer Gloves" just might make a pretty good Mother's Day gift.
\ Joan Schroeder has a story in the anthology "Life on the Line."
by CNB