Author: Pamela Morsi
Genre: Women's Fiction
Status: Library Book
Grade: B
One phone call can change your entire life. Before Red Cullen took the call that was to change hers she was a red hot honky tonk owner, a 40 something with a toned, tattooed bod and a fiddle playing boy toy. After the call she was a grandma with 9 yr old Olivia and six year old Daniel in tow, shocked at the news that her daughter Bridge is in Iraq with the army, Abuela who normally cares for the kids while she is overseas has had a stroke and no longer can and that Red is actually listed as the next of kin on Bridges notification forms. Right from the beginning Red shows just how unprepared she is for the way her life is about to change when she goes to pick the children up in a two seater sports car without a seat belt -- or even seat-- for the youngest child -- and the base security guard refuses to let her off base till she has both. As she sits and waits for Cam, her boy toy, to come help her out she wonders just what else about her life will prove to be totally incompatible to two young children -- and will Cam be one of those things when he finds out she not only has a kid but grandkids?
I love Pam Morsi's writing and the way she focuses her work on "regular folk" who are unique individuals. Red, a bar owner in San Antonio, TX may be a tad different than most people but she is very grounded in today's world. She has to worry about bills, she has to work, she has relationship problems and trust issues -- in short, she is unique but also "just folk". Morsi captures Red beautifully, slowly introducing us to the many layers that are Red and bringing nuance to a character who (because of her career and background) would have been very easy to have be all show and no substance. She does this with each character in turn, painting Olivia (Livvy) and Daniel vividly enough that they aren't just central casting kids but again, alive, unique individuals who are the type of people you expect to meet at your local playground. In fact, Morsi cuts no corners in creating any character, making them all step off the page even if they are only on it for a moment or two.
This is Red's story and we get it almost exclusively from her point of view. It would be easy to call it "women's fiction" with all that entails but in many ways it is a very untraditional coming of age story. As the story unfolds Red learns all the lessons of coming of age -- that no one truly stands on their own but that learning to live within family and community as a full functioning member are what adulthood is all about, that love leaves you vulnerable and that in the end life isn't about how little help you need but about how much help you give. She learns that little about the future can be set in stone, no matter how hard we work to make that the case and that life affects us all this way -- rich, poor, young or old it offers none of us guarantees. It would be easy to think that Red's not knowing these things mean we meet an immature woman at the beginning of the book but we don't. Red had a tough road to traverse with many obstacles on it and she has traversed it and conquered it. But she traveled so hard and so fast that this is the first moment she has ever really been forced to look at who all was traveling that road with her. She doesn't waste that opportunity.
So why isn't this book an A? Does it have a perfect, happy ending? No. The whole point of the book is that life can come at us sideways and Red at the end of the book has the shadow of several of those "sideways" looming over the future. My complaint was with how very smoothly the problems that crop up are handled. All the things that Red needs to bridge her lifestyle to that of the kids appear. The children themselves might initially treat her with some well earned disrespect and skepticism (she is clueless as to what is expected from the modern parent) but they quickly settle into being model school children. They excel at school -- no learning disabilities or adjustments for the fact that they have been in numerous schools in their young lives are needed. More, Red is easily accepted into a community that you wouldn't expect her to be embraced by. When altercations occur with significant players -- even physical ones -- they are forgiven. Even Red's past is brought to a point where there is some closure and some small (far too late and far too little) rectification is made. Don't get me wrong, in many ways that was great. No downers or pesky, unhappy realities to deal with. But it also made me question a bit why the author went down this path to begin with. It seemed unrealistic to take us to the edge of a cliff only for us to find that it was only a two foot drop -- and we didn't even twist an ankle on the way down. Yes, the future is uncertain but that is the reality all of us face. Most of us face it without warning so even in that sense Red has one over on the rest of us.
I would recommend this book still. It is a great read, just a bit on the sugary side. And hey, who doesn't need sugar every once in a while.
The tea: Anything sweet will work but sweet iced tea is the best for dealing with that San Antonio sunshine!
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