cover image Blue Hour

Blue Hour

Elizabeth Evans. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $17.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-56512-018-1

With its dead-on evocation of 1959 America, this novel of family transformation proves a diverting first novel from an accomplished short-story writer. Though narrated by Penny Powell as an adult, the story is imbued with the acute sensitivity of Penny the child, who likens her function to that of ventriloquist dummies Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy. At age 10, Penny moves with her family from tiny Dolores, Ill. (pop. 7000), to ``grand and intimidating'' Meander (pop. 50,000), redolent of the scent from the local slaughterhouse. Her father, Bob, plans to build a door factory with Archie Jones, a down-on-his-luck Welshman who, like all of Bob's previous business partners, will show himself to be a snake in the grass. Meanwhile, her mother, Dotty, once accomplished and attractive, labors under Bob's view of her as crippled, fat, silly and a bad driver. Moving into an impressive custom-built house, Dotty falls under the sway of sophisticated neighbors and is propelled by French lessons, diet pills and hair bleach toward regained selfhood-and tragedy, as Bob's fortunes spiral downward. (Sept.)