Myra Sims

Admirers of Owens's first novel, My Brother Michael, may be disappointed with her attempts to retell the same story, this time from the eponymous Myra Sims's point of view. (Myra's brother-in law, Gabriel Catt, narrated the previous book, an account of his unquenchable love for the woman who became his brother's wife.) This version, again an affecting tale of incest, adultery and hard-won love among the lowborn denizens of a West Florida mill town, begins, like the first, with Michael, Myra's husband and Gabriel's brother, dead at age 43. Again we have flashbacks to their traumatic childhoods and to the adulterous liaison between Myra and Gabriel. In an arduous process of recovery, Myra confronts the truth that her adultery was the result of a drug-fogged mind and recognizes that Michael was always her true love. Myra's cynical view of her affair with Gabriel negates his romantic perception that the encounter was passionately reciprocated. Unfortunately, the ambitious endeavor of revealing an unexpected perspective to a story already once told also reveals some narrative insecurities in this gifted author's insightful, homespun style; here she indulges in repetitive minutiae and some overwrought prose. Yet Owens is a writer with a remarkable talent for touching the heart of a tale and endowing the circumstances of humble lives with dignity. (Feb.)