World of Pies

Comparisons to Fried Green Tomatoes have become so commonplace that readers begin to suspect publishers of hyperbole until they come across something as front-porch charming as this episodic debut novel, covering nearly 30 years in the life of Roxanne Milner. Beginning in 1961, when Roxanne is 12, the 10 stand-alone chapters, most ending in dessert recipes and each serving up a witty, quirky slice of a single life, take as their primary setting Annette, Tex., a postage-stamp-sized town where even the advent of the first female mail carrier is big news. Roxanne's father is the proprietor of Carl's Corsets, while her mother is immersed in housekeeping and cooking, especially in ""the world of pies, "" a distinctively feminine territory that baseball aficionado Roxanne is not at all certain she wants to enter. But after she participates in the town's first pie fair, she develops an interest in baking. Adroitly maneuvering an energetic, episodic and unpredictable plot, Stolz makes a series of glimpses into smalltown life more universal by dropping a new element into each chapter--a mother's old boyfriend, a new baby, the arrival of the drug culture--each revealing a lively new angle of Annette and its inhabitants. Waves in Roxanne's domestic tide pool ripple outward, reflecting the more titanic racial, social and political changes in the world at large. True, there are some redundancies and some of the chapter endings are a little too cozily pat, but overall this is engaging storytelling, as nostalgically appealing as a 10 Coke. Agent, Gail Hochman. $100,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book club selections; 6-city author tour. (June)