Ah, the fates have intervened again and a long misplaced email has called a book to my attention. Ann Blair Kloman wrote a wonderful suspense novel last year (… longer? Who knows?  I age without consent) and has now written another.

And to think I almost missed it.  Isobel’s Odyssey is a treat.  Wonderfully reminiscent of my beloved Mrs Polifax series (Dorothy Gilman), Isobel Van Dursan has broadened her horizons.

A sweet widow (do not believe this) from the picturesque coast of Maine, she decides travel and piles of caviar-type accommodations whilst doing so is her new future.  Why should she suffer in coach when the Admiral’s Club has such great chairs and champagne?  She is equally resolute in her inability to suffer fools.  Some less than others.

Certain people really have it coming and, if the two propensities can work together? … ahhh.  Isobel’s niece Chloe married a particularly obstreperous individual with whom Isobel has taken great umbrage.  What to do?  How about a small electrical problem?

Indeed.  Well, he asked for it.  Who else is behaving poorly and asking for it?  Quite a number of disreputable characters apparently.  And if something were to happen, who would suspect a sweet American widow?

See where this is going?  Just wonderful.  The unlikeliest of scenarios when written with humor and zest is going to be a fun book.

Ann has nailed it again.

Jennifer Petty Mann grew up in New York City, moved to London, England, then back to Boston, and is now happily ensconced on the EightMile river in Lyme with three little ones.  A former teacher, window dresser for Saks, and designer, she is taking her love of books to the proverbial “street.” 

Swamplandia!  The reviews of Karen Russell’s last book, “Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” are enough to make you pick this new one up and clutch it to your chest as you race from the shop … “Run for your life. The girl is on fire.” (Los Angeles Times)

Not even a page in and I was captivated by the ease and grace with which she writes.  A pseudo-real Indian tribe on an island with beer and alligators and ghosts?  Really?  And I didn’t bat an eye.  It felt a bit like finding Harper Lee again.  The character of Ava Bigtree is so tangible, so familiar that it grabbed me.

I’ll digress a bit for the sake of clarity (hardly my forte as we all know).  The Bigtree family owns Swamplandia!, the alligator theme park where they also live.  Ava, her parents, brother and sister know little else but life with the “Seths” (as they name each and every alligator) on their island on the west coast of Florida.  The world outside is encroaching.  Cancer, theme park competitors, old folks’ homes,  love affairs.  They all loom on the horizon. 

There is a slightly off-kilter magical quality to Swamplandia! that makes all of this pain bearable.  It is reminiscent of Victorian goth or a dark fairy tale.  This lift keeps it just above the waterline of despair.  Some parts are hard to read.  Her brother Kiwi and her sister Ossie are teetering on a dangerous edge.  Her father, mother and grandfather have fallen over.  Ava’s narrative is just high enough to keep Swamplandia! afloat. 

The beginning seems strangely positive.  Campy, but exhilarating.  When Ava’s mother dies, the change is swift.  The darkness starts to flood in.  Ava’s father, Chief Bigtree, is gone.  Her siblings are too engrossed in their own struggles to cope.  Ava is left to pick up the pieces of their lives and their livelihood.  She has no support.  She has one to rely upon.  She has an island crawling with Seths.  She is 13.

And yet, she is no dummy. 

You hope right away that she will be fine.  She will fight long and hard to be fine.  Hell, her mother swam through alligator-infested swamps for a living … how weak could Ava be?  There is hope and dark humor and stalwart narrative that keeps you reading. 

And the symbolism of one red seth in the congregation is worth holding onto.

Jennifer Petty Mann grew up in New York City, moved to London, England, then back to Boston, and is now happily ensconced on the EightMile river in Lyme with three little ones.  A former teacher, window dresser for Saks, and designer, she is taking her love of books to the proverbial “street.” 

I live on a little under 10 acres.  It’s fairly private and we all sort of behave the way we like without fear of public scrutiny.

Upon re reading Bill Bryson’s book The Lost Continent, I laughed so hard and so loudly and so often that I was embarrassed and waited for someone to come scold me or at least make fun.

He is bar (almost) none, the most amusing writer.  It may be my practicular brand of sarcastic, snide, clever, back-handed yet kind humor, but Im not the only one.

I am sadly now at the point where I can re-read a book from years back and have it be only vaguely familiar.  Sad but it also excitingly opens a whole new world of literature.

Maybe I’ll start re-reviewing. That could be fun.  You could all send in nasty, pitying letters saying,” You didthat one two years ago.”  Oh well, maybe I have different thoughts on it.  Take that!.

Anyhoo. The Lost Continent is a series of essays on Bryson’s travel and rediscovery of his native country upon return from years and years in England.  He ran from Iowa as fast as he could and is now pining a bit so he has returned.  He is searching for his childhood and memories shared with his recently deceased father.*

As he travels in his mothers Chevette, we follow him through small-town America.

He succumbs to road rage, idiotic directions, angry gravel and angrier waitresses.  He eats Wiffle Ball Surprise and sleeps on  mattresses that sap his will to live.  As we are laughing, we are agreeing that the idiosyncrasies and glories of small-town America are what make us all who we are.  It’s a wonderful journey.

* For more brilliantly written along this vein read, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt KId.  Maybe I will re-read that next …

Jennifer Petty Mann grew up in New York City, moved to London, England, then back to Boston, and is now happily ensconced on the EightMile river in Lyme with three little ones.  A former teacher, window dresser for Saks, and designer, she is taking her love of books to the proverbial “street.”