THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407070448
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
SHE FLEW THE COOP
A Novel Concerning Life, Death, Sex and Recipes in Limoges, Louisiana
MICHAEL LEE WEST
HarperCollins. 390 pp. $22.
OLIVE NEPPER WAS sweet 16 and in trouble. She deftly laced her orange Nehi soda with rose poison and drank. Then she slipped into a coma.
So begins Michael Lee West's second novel, She Flew the Coop, with its subtitle that tells all: A Novel Concerning Life, Death, Sex and Recipes in Limoges, Louisiana.
West, the author of Crazy Ladies, is a Louisiana native who lives with her husband and two sons in a renovated funeral home outside Nashville, Tenn.
Gossip rages through the fictional town of Limoges after the poisoning: Olive allegedly lost her virginity to the Rev. T.C. Kirby on a youth-choir trip.
``Rumors hung in the air like crisp linen, the fabric's shape distorted by prevailing winds,'' West writes. ``That's all Limoges was good for - rumor spreading, a kind of oral newspaper that circulated over back fences and in spotless kitchens, while matrons sipped chicory coffee and nibbled cake.''
The dialogue of She Flew the Coop drips with Southern drawl. West knows the life and the way of thought. She also knows the literary tradition.
Throughout this twisted page-turner about love snarls and lust, marriage and misfortune, West is the careful observer - someone who draws upon a multitude of images that she has squirreled away.
But her greatest talent may lie in an ability to juxtapose the unlikely.
``It seemed to her that love was like noise - loud soft harsh faint grating. Comforting. Maddening,'' she writes.
West has thought a lot about the intricate relationship between food and sex, life and death. Too many mayonnaise and bacon sandwiches may add weight to a wife's hips and curb a husband's desire. Poisoning is the kind of tragedy that makes women cook. West makes it all comical, while cutting the ribbon of truth.
``Gardening, cooking, love - it's all the same,'' she writes. ``Ignore your squash, and they'll rot on the vine. Leave out the egg whites, and your souffle won't rise. Plant the same old crops, and some woman will show your husband her cantaloupes.''
West borrows from the successful formula of Laura Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate, in which each chapter begins with a recipe, but chooses to sprinkle her recipes throughout - taste treats such as cantaloupe pickles and red beans and rice. ``Cooking is soothing and predictable, the way life isn't,'' she says.
West writes about women raised to cook, garden and entertain - women that a newcomer to town describes as ``flowerlike ladies, fragrant and decorative; pleasing to the eye and senses, more ornamental than useful.'' But they are also thoughtful women, and through them, West offers universal truths.
``Now that Olive was all grown, I didn't know what to do with myself,'' says Olive's mother, Vangie Nepper. ``You could build your life around one single thing, like a view or a child, but that was risky. You had so much to lose. Maybe Henry had the right idea - he spread himself thin.''
Later, Henry, Vangie's husband and Olive's father, is described: ``His life was partitioned - pharmacist, Rotarian, father, hunter, fisherman, husband, member of Phillip LeGette's class at First Baptist, and, more recently, adulterer. Everything was separate, in little boxes. If women could learn to do this, they'd be content. . . .''
If there is a weakness in West's writing, it may be that she gives too much. She provides abundant snippets of wisdom, and a large cast of characters rich in personality - a lot for the reader to absorb in a quick-paced novel.
Regardless, She Flew the Coop is a delight. West captures humanity simply, accurately and with a hearty dose of humor. MEMO: June Arney is a staff writer. ILLUSTRATION: Jacket design and illustration by HONI WERNER
by CNB