| From Publishers Weekly Trapped in a marriage that she calls "forty-five years of servile misery，" 68-year-old Emma O'Hallahan takes an unusual step--she shoots her husband in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun. So begins this satire of contemporary American society， set in suburban California. After burying her spouse "underneath the rhododendron tree in the back garden，" Emma begins to remake her life in her own image: sleeping late， drinking brandy， watching daytime talk shows and， most importantly， keeping a journal of her newfound awareness. Despite Emma's honest and engaging voice， however， her story ultimately fails to grip the imagination. After opening the novel with a literal bang， Bradfield's ( The History of Luminous Motion ) protagonist remains essentially a passive character， spending most of her time at home， contemplating her misfortunes and arguing with her dead husband's ghost. Hers is a sad story， but it never becomes a captivating one. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information， Inc. From Library Journal Bradfield， author of the critically acclaimed The History of Luminous Motion (LJ 9/1/89)， has written a marvelously wacky novel about a grandma with a serious attitude problem. With "almost forty-five years of concentrated hatred...in [her] heart，" Emma O'Hallohan pops her churlish husband in the head with a shotgun. She plants his corpse in her backyard and embarks on a second career as a serial murderer. Bradfield has a flair for describing the bizarre underside of Southern California. Loony characters， offbeat situations， and off-kilter sensibilities flourish in this manically zany comedy， which targets suburban consumerism， dysfunctional families， New Age cults， and popular psycho- and sociobabble. There are echoes of Kem Nunn's Tapping the Source (LJ 2/1/84)， but Bradfield's California is less Gothic though just as doomed. For most fiction collections.David Keymer， California State Univ.， StanislausCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information， Inc. See all Editorial Reviews |
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