My Sister from the Black Lagoon: A Novel of My Life

A triumph of storytelling verve, dark humor and unabashed candor, Fox's autobiographical first novel (a poet, she wrote Sexy Hieroglyphics: 3,335 Do-It-Yourself Haiku) is the enthralling story of Lorna Person, daughter of a TV network accountant and a lovable 1950s mom and younger sister to Lonnie, the truly crazy child with a ""frown that could launch nuclear missiles."" Lonnie's mental illness is the natural disaster of the Person family, leaving every member hanging onto shreds of their selves. Or as Fox so aptly puts it, ""Life with Lonnie was the only story. Until this story, which I hope to God is my own."" In 23 funny, sometimes heartbreaking chapters, Fox takes Lorna (known to her sister as Oozy) from her lonely childhood in Burbank, Calif., to her roller-coaster teens in the San Fernando Valley and finally to UC-Santa Cruz, where she begins to claim her life. Many of the traumas and dramas are achingly familiar: an awkward childhood; an unwanted move; the discovery of friendship, love and sex (for this lucky girl, first love and first sex are mated); and, of course, the parents' divorce. No doubt, if that alone were Fox's material, she would have made a terrifically entertaining tale of it. But it isn't. What shadows this story is the crazy, terrorizing sister who dresses like a boy, wails like a bobcat and says, only too perceptively, ""home sour home."" As much as Lonnie torments her, Lorna does love her sister, trying always to protect her--from taunts and rocks and the knowledge that her brain works differently. And that is where the tension lies: How will Lonnie's Oozy ever become Lorna? The novel's subtext is television (apt for a novel partly set in Burbank), and, like TV, the narrative is episodic. A few episodes fall flat, yet big-hearted Lorna sustains this fresh and potent tale. Author tour. (Aug.) FYI: Fox worked at Warwick's Bookstore in California and helped start their reading program. She is a writer-in-residence in L.A. schools.