Windchill Summer

The breezy, lighthearted tone of this debut novel immediately captures the reader's attention, but its guilelessness conceals a sophisticated, multifaceted evocation of the consequences of the Vietnam War, played out in the small town of Sweet Valley, Ark. What Cherry and her best friend, Baby, assume will be an ordinary summer before their senior year at college in 1969 veers abruptly off-course when a childhood friend, Carlene, is found beaten and drowned in the local lake. Everyday life lurches, then ambles on: at night, Cherry and Baby earn pocket money by peeling onions at the pickle plant, where Cherry meets Tripp, a Vietnam veteran who hails from Berkeley and who introduces her to all that name implies. Cherry develops a healthy doubt about the fire-and-brimstone faith in which she was raised (""It was scary how good I was getting at sin""). She also gradually comes to understand the way Carlene's murder has shaken the town, a place already shocked by the return from Vietnam of irrevocably altered hometown boys and haunted by those who didn't come back, like Carlene's ex-boyfriend, Jerry. Viewpoints intricately intermingled give voice to the thoughts, emotions and many secrets of a variety of compelling characters, through depictions of Baby and her family, the only Filipinos in Sweet Valley; throughflashbacks to Carlene's tumultuous childhood; through letters that Carlene and Jerry exchanged during the war. These many perspectives reveal one secret after another, and only the reader is privy to the network of enigmatic deceptions as a whole. Cherry's irresistible voice balances the story: each time the horrors of Vietnam (or of Sweet Valley's underbelly) invade, Cherry's vivacity fends them off, although her own path is rocky. In the end, the author (Norman Mailer's wife) makes her characters take the tough road, and her accomplished, bittersweet novel proves that they are hardy, resilient, and complex enough for a journey that readers will enjoy every step of the way. 12-city author tour. (June)