Ride a Cockhorse

A revolution is underway at the once sleepy New England
bank where forty-five-year-old Frances Fitzgibbons, newly
endowed with a gift for persuasive speech and a dramatically
quickened libido, has gone from sweet-tempered loan officer
to insatiable force of nature almost overnight. Suddenly she’s
brazenly seducing the high school drum major, taking over her
boss’s office, firing anyone who crosses her, inspiring populist
fervor, and publicly announcing plans to crush her local rivals
en route to dominating the entire Northeast banking industry.
The explosive reign of terror instituted by Frances and her
offbeat goon squad (led by her devoted hairdresser and including
her own son-in-law), diabolically comic and frighteningly
plausible, brimming with snappy dialogue and gleeful obscenity,
is an awesome spectacle to behold.

A master stylist, Raymond Kennedy has created in Ride a
Cockhorse a rollicking cautionary tale of small-town demagoguery
that might be seen to prefigure both America’s current
financial woes and the rise of the likes of Sarah Palin. Frances
is in any case a beautiful monster of an antihero—resist her at
your peril!