Rebecca Wells's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is rivaled by a fictional sibling: Michael Lee West's Crazy Ladies. West's tale of wild women down South is faster and snappier than Wells's thick bayou prose gumbo, but it has some of the same virtues--a cast of wacky characters, lively regional dialogue, and a satisfying multigenerational time frame. The scene shifts from 1932 to 1972, and from Crystal Falls, Tennessee, to New Orleans to hippie Frisco and L.A., though it's mostly rooted in Tennessee, where sunflower gardens contain deep secrets and kids can light up whole summers with lightning bugs in a jar.

The crazy lady who starts the story is Gussie, vexed by her ornery first daughter, Dorothy. When Dorothy's kid sister, Clancy Jane, comes of age, the real ruckus begins, thanks partly to Gussie's helpless preference for sweet Clancy Jane over dour Dorothy, who calls Gussie "Mother Dear" from age 6 on. Sweet Clancy Jane turns out to be headstrong, too--she runs off in a poodle skirt with Hart, who works on oil rigs, Esso stands, and the odd Cajun girl on the side. And then the '60s hit, bringing on Gussie's grandkids, Bitsy and Violet, plus some jolting social changes reminiscent of Lisa Alther's Kinflicks. Though it's spiced with horror (rape, crib death, one character buried alive), the dominant tone is breezy humor. At one point, the sister with "thighs that could break a man's neck" catches her husband and her shapelier sister "wrapped around each other like stripes on a candy cane." Not a magisterial novel, but a really good read. --Tim Appelo


From Publishers Weekly
The characters in West's promising first novel are richly eccentric and they exist in a colorfully evoked setting. However, there's little tension in this saga of a family in small-town Crystal Falls, Tenn. Though the story begins with the shock of a murder and the attempts of Miss Gussie Hamilton, resident matriarch, to conceal it, the murder has little importance in the ensuing narrative, even when the body is unearthed decades later. Meanwhile, Miss Gussie, her three daughters and their daughters endure various dramatic vicissitudes, including a fair share of illegitimate births, betrayals and divorces. (Three generations of daughters reunite under Miss Gussie's roof). Miss Gussie's daughter Dorothy is the only truly "crazy" lady among them: her whining sibling rivalry blossoms into self-absorption and culminates in nasty, dangerous paranoia. The extremity of her neurosis seems unwarranted unless one accepts her as a bad seed, but she remains the family troublemaker until she receives her well-deserved comeuppance. Cultural referents, such as pop song titles and lyrics, keep the time frame intact and convey the cadence of life in the rural South, and though readers may become somewhat exasperated by Miss Gussie's flaky kin, they should enjoy West's portraiture of women who triumph over the problems that fate and their own difficult personalities bring into their lives. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Six interlocking first-person narratives chronicle the family history of a generation of white Southern women from the Depression through the Sixties. An unexpected and extraordinary act of defensive violence sets the stage for subsequent developments as domestic ties, the constraints of small town society, and international events shape and change each woman's life. Strongest when exploring the private world of family, this first novel is less successful in placing that world in the larger context of contemporary culture.- Susan C. Griffith, Boston Coll. Lib., Chestnut Hill, Mass.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Washington Post Book World
"A wonderful first novel of the lives of threegenerations of Tennessee women....I can't thinkof enough nice things to say about Crazy Ladies.The voices are sharp, wry, and utterly convincing."


From AudioFile
A cast of memorable Southern women-six generations-their loves, mistakes and struggles-makes up this entertaining novel, superbly read by the author. West's nuances of dialect are authentic, and she fully creates each character vocally, expressing the full emotional range without ever going too far. In a feat unusual for an author/narrator, she makes it hard to imagine anyone else reading the story better. Beginning in the Depression with Gussie and a deep family secret, the story moves through the decades, developing stories of Gussie's daughters and their children, as well as that of Queenie, the young black woman who comes to work for Gussie in the '30s and becomes part of the saga. West's skill at creating fully believable characters (despite the dramatic events in their lives) makes this a rich and robust novel, wonderfully performed. M.A.M. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From Tennessee to New Orleans, from hippie Haight-Ashbury to a remote desert ranch, here is a novel full of love and laughter, pain and redemption, told in the women's voices of one special family, that are as rich and recognizable as our own. Living large and hanging tough, they teach us the lessons we knew we were missing....

FROM THE CRITICS

Los Angeles Times

West's accent is Southern fried and brassy...her spirited performanceis enjoyable.

St. Petersburg Times

Not since Flannery O'Connor's first book has a debut novel by a young Southerner been so filled with wry humor and humanity, so precisely right in its idioms, and so distinctive in its voices.

Providence Journal

...a fine reading by Nashville resident West, who finds just the right voice for each of her creations.

Washington Post Book World

A wonderful first novel of the lives of three generations of Tennessee women....I can't think of enough nice things to say about Crazy Ladies. The voices are sharp, wry, and utterly convincing.

AudioFile Magazine