The Geography of Women: A Romantic Comedy (Paperback)

~ JACK FRITSCHER (Author) "Memory came back to me, it did, like sort a vision, the kind you dream when you're barely half awake an so half asleep someone..." (more)
Key Phrases: red staircase, Mizz Lulabelle, Mister Henry, Wilmer Fox (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Snappy characters...witty dialog...page-turning prose...storytelling at its best! Fritscher's Laydia Spain joins Rita Mae Brown's fMolly and Dorothy Allison's Bone as one of the smartest, sassiest heroines in recent years." -David Van Leer, The New Republic, NY, and The Times Literary Supplement, London

"The Jack Fritscher whose voice sounds so true telling spunky Laydia Spain O'Hara's exuberant story of self-discovery. This good-natured romp through a more innocent time is as rife with honesty and life as A Confederacy of Dunces." -Richard LaBonte, A Different Light Books, SF, NY, LA

"The power of Jack Fritscher's previous books, Some Dance to Remember, and Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera, derives from their intense focus on...the 1970's and 1980's. The Geography of Women is a fine book, a delight...funny and relaxed...and told in a style that is part Mark Twain, part William Faulkner, part Rita Mae Brown, and part Dorothy Allison. This is a lively and surprising addition to the rich tradition of humor in Southern literature." -Jim Marks, Lambda Book Report, Wash, D.C.

"This novel is Fritscher's best work...reminiscent of great Southern writers. A truly touching story about difference and goodness, and why it's sometimes good to be different." -Edward Lucie-Smith, critic and author, Race, Sex and Gender, London

"Wonderful storytelling! The writing is as vivid as a fast-talking screenplay with music." -Armando Aguilar, Thrust Magazine, LA

"Fritscher's women glow with warmth. You feel their desires, needs, love, and-in the rhythm of the writing-the true beat of their hearts." -Mira Schwirtz, critic whose review of Fritscher's work appears in The San Francisco Review of Books

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Description

Telling her story at the end of the 20th century, Laydia Spain O'Hara, untangles the past of fourteen characters' lives tied together in a small southern Illinois town from the mid-1950s of Elvis through the mid-1960s after Kennedy's Camelot. Her comic tale of faces unmasking--and conflicts resolving--is a human journey about coming of age and inventing one's self despite all gossip while keeping the torch of true love burning. In a triangle with her two best friends, Jessarose and Mizz Lulabelle, Laydia Spain outwits convention, opens her own boarding house, and discovers a solidarity in new ideas of family, home, and the human heart that mirror the vast social changes sweeping American culture during the mid-century.

In the tradition of spunky small-town girls whose vernacular descends from Huck Finn, Laydia Spain dares to take on her own father, Big Jim O'Hara, the postman and accordion champ who named her Laydia Spain; Mister Henry Apple, the prescription-eating pharmacist who marries the bleach-blond Mizz Lulabelle; and Mister Wilmer Fox, the red-headed traveling salesman whose revolving returns to the little town of Canterberry always upset everyone's plans to live happily ever after.

Ultimately, the dark-skinned cinnamon girl, Jessarose, who takes off on the road to fame and fortune as a roadhouse blues singer, defines the direction of love, because, while "the human face is a limitless terrain that just pulls you right in....the geography of women is where nature itself takes course homeward bound, the long route or the short, the high road or the low."

Comic, good-humored, nostalgic, and as vivid as a fast-talking film script with music, Jack Fritscher's sixth book of fiction is lean writing laced with witty observations and a couple of tear drops of genuine human compassion. This is a real storyteller's tale--a very polished tale--of lively characters living in a specific place at a time that has reached the level of myth in American popular culture.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 142 pages
• Publisher: Palm Drive Publishing (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890834254
• ISBN-13: 978-1890834258
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,942,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than Fried Green Tomatoes with the Ya Ya Sisterhood, January 17, 2003

By A Customer

When it comes to the American novel of the "sawth" with women drawling out their best dialog, quips, and wisdom, this funny little novel has more storytelling power, plot, and dialog than most, and doesn't let its gals (2 white, 1 black)turn into stereotypes. It's as good, if not better than fried green tomatoes with the Ya Ya's, and both of those books are something wonderful indeed in their own right.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jack is the bomb!!, August 9, 1999

By A Customer

The Geography of Women is a wonderful book, and compleatly engrossing. The only thing that tops Jack's amazing writting is his absolutely charming personality. I highly reccomend this novel to anyone who wihes to escaoe thier reality for a few hours. . .