SECONDHAND SMOKE
Patty Friedmann, . . Counterpoint, $24 (292pp) ISBN 978-1-58243-217-5
The chronic discontent and over-the-top dysfunction of a Southern working-class family are at the heart of this dark comedy. Wilson Bailey has a Ph.D. in organic evolution but he is helpless in the face of his wife's infidelity and his father's cancer. His estranged sister, Zib, is a nihilistic assistant manager at Winn-Dixie, where she is constantly rebuffing the advances of her sleazy boss. Their mother, Ru, is a chain-smoking racist prone to bouts of physical and verbal violence. Both siblings have forged independent lives away from their native New Orleans, but their father's death brings them back together for another round of domestic insanity. Friedmann (
Reviewed on: 08/19/2002
Genre: Fiction