JoNell lives with her sister Eleanor and her grandmother in a small town where they have an old fashioned doughnut shop. When JoNell has an accident involving tequila and a train, the third sister, Freddie, is coming home. The book explores their ways of coping with the world and their family "curse". The present is intermingled with memories of the past. The sisters and their grandmother Miranda take turns in relating current events, flashbacks and analysis. This makes for a great variety in view points. I loved to read how the same incident is seen by different characters and how they perceive themselves and are perceived by others. I enjoyed this book quite a bit.
I really loved Crazy Ladies, so this is like a lukewarm serving of leftovers. Its got elements of whatmade Crazy Ladies so good, but not enough to really compare. Three different adult sisters (cautious Eleanor, scholarly Freddie, and often-married Jo-Nell -- even her first name is hyphenated!) live and learn after the youngest (Jo-Nell) is in a car accident. They live with their grandmother Minerva Pray in Tennessee -- their mother had killed herself years earlier and Eleanor found the body. Gradually, she is getting afraid to leave the house. Freddies marriage is crumbling and, when she hears of the accident, she returns to her hometown from California and runs into her high-school love. And Jo-Nell is breaking hearts despite her broken bones and bedriddance. This is still a good novel but it takes a while to appreciate it if you read Wests other works first.
If youre a fan of great Southern literature such as CRAZY LADIES, DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA, or Jackson McCraes BARK OF THE DOGWOOD, then you will love this book. As always, West gives us enough colorful characters to fill the pages of several novels and does it with enough zest and talent that they become larger than life, but not in a cardboard cut-out way. While I did like CRAZY LADIES better than this effort, AMERICAN PIE is still worth your time and money. For that matter, read all of Wests books. Also recommended: CRAZY LADIES, BARK OF THE DOGWOOD, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
