A Plan for Women

Although Naumoff's five previous novels (most recently Silk Hope, NC) have all been devoted to puncturing one or more of the illusions that bind men and women together, this provocative, infuriating and downright funny chronicle of the battle of the sexes in Charlotte, N.C., goes one step further--it manages to discomfit everyone. Goody-two-shoes Walter (he is fired from Homes for Humanity over a matter of conscience) loves Louise, an attractive young respiratory therapist who loves him back. They marry, but their quirky families (and a resurfaced video of Louise with a former lover) threaten to destroy their idyll. Walter's highly moral parents are at war with his sexually adventurous, divorcee sister (the antithesis of the bride Walter thinks he's getting). Meanwhile, Louise's father keeps punishing Louise's mother for an early transgression in their marriage by behaving like a boor (he bonds with Walter by confiding that he suffers from chronic diarrhea) and by consenting to home improvement projects that are not only demeaning, but life-threatening. As the redneck couple next door set yet another troubling example to the newlyweds (""Manny was good to her. He had only hit her twice and only one of those times in the face""), Walter's sister gets involved with a predatory college instructor armed with reams of sexual research and a bagful of sexual appliances. The instructor (who turns out to be Louise's former lover) becomes her blackmailer, Walter's sister finds a new lover, an innocent goat is killed and everyone's ""plan for women,"" well-intentioned or otherwise, goes disastrously awry. Once again, Naumoff's dry eye for anecdotal witness and penchant for dissecting the social anatomy yield a very funny comedy of contemporary manners. (July)