HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE, PART DEUX
Posted by: Gary Niebuhr
Back in May I had bragged on a Milwaukee-area writer named Lesley Kagen and her book, Whistling in the Dark.
Now I can do the same for her second effort, Land of a Hundred Wonders. Kagen is one of those authors whose narrative voice is so solid that they make a very complex offering seem like it would have flowed from her pen like a conversation.
Her main character this time around is Gibby McGraw, a twenty year old woman in Cray Ridge, Kentucky, who is brain damaged from a car accident. I’m sorry–the politically correct term is NQR (Not Quite Right). Gibby is on a mission to become QR and live up to the expectations of her dead mother. Gibby lives with her Grandfather, works his diner, writes a local gossip newspaper, and lives her life according to the principles of The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation, a book her grandfather gave her when she got out of the hospital to stimulate her brain.
As it turns out, it is a wise choice for reading when Gibby discovers a dead body. After two shootings (0ne funny, one not), a race riot and dump fire, a manhunt and the re-discovery of love, all is settled in this book.
The book will work for book discussion groups because it manages to use a delightful narrative voice, a witty sense of humor, an intriguing plot and a challenging style to bring it all off. Plenty of issues are raise to keep a group talking all night long.
