Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 29, 1994                   TAG: 9401290087
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: C-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by JOAN SCHROEDER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AUTHOR PUTS TOO MUCH INTO HER 2ND EFFORT

"A Whistling Woman" is the long-awaited second novel from Louise Shivers, whose first book won rave reviews 10 years ago. If you haven't read "Here To Get My Baby Out of Jail," do it. It's a small masterpiece; deceptively simple, beautifully controlled, absolutely unforgettable.

Not so with Shivers' second effort. Though "A Whistling Woman" is written with the same clear prose and subtle atmosphere of its predecessor, this novel is missing one crucial element: intensity. And in a novella-length book that's a major problem.

"A Whistling Woman" is a prequel, telling the life story of Georgeanna Weeks, the wonderful grandmother in Shivers' first novel. Set in North Carolina just after the Civil War, this book begins with Georgeanna and her mother moving to Fairfield, a plantation owned by Mr. Worth Fleeting. Not long after, Mr. Fleeting's strikingly handsome son, John, takes a fancy to young Georgeanna, seducing then raping her.

When she learns that her daughter is carrying John Fleeting's babe, Chaney Weeks makes herself appear pregnant, rescuing her daughter's reputation so that she can eventually marry honorably.

This plot twist is a fascinating one, an opportunity for Shivers to explore slowly and carefully the depths and implications of such a mother-daughter relationship. Instead, the author pushes time ahead with phrases like "Well, our lives didn't stop ... and that baby kept right on growing inside me" and "I didn't sit around and think about this kind of thing much back then. Mama kept me busy being 17 years old."

Shivers' decision to tell the story of a whole life in so few pages makes this book less than it should be. Also, she fails to take the time to explore Georgeanna's attraction to her seducer. So when she encounters him years later and realizes how little he remembers of the event which changed her life, we don't doubt it a bit.

As she did in her first novel, Shivers has filled this book with precise details, creating a rich setting for her story. What she hasn't done this time around is produce a similarly dense and compelling chain of events. She failed not in idea but in execution; not because she had no story, but because she had too much of one for a novella.

Out of print for eight years, "Here To Get My Baby Out of Jail" has been re-issued in paperback by Longstreet Press. It is a book not to miss. I wish I could say the same about its prequel.

Joan Schroeder is a Roanoke writer.