Some Days There's Pie Book

Some Days There's Pie is a determinedly folksy title for a determinedly folksy novel. Catherine Landis's debut tells the story of two iconoclastic Southern women who find each other at exactly the right moment. Narrator Ruth, fleeing a constraining marriage, is just starting out in life; Rose, an elderly muckraker, is just coming to the end. Their friendship provides the scaffolding for this quirky, emotional novel. The two characters are gritty and funny, but they can also be annoyingly aware of their own uniqueness. Ruth's sister wants her to "have a lot of boyfriends and join the pep club and wear makeup instead of hanging out in the woods, looking at the stars, which was the kind of thing I liked to do." Such clichéd iconoclasm would be heavy-handed even in a young adult novel. On the other hand, almost every page yields the kind of offhandedly sprightly language--"It was August and no-kidding hot"--that marks the best and freshest Southern writing. These small pleasures amass and make this first-time novelist a writer to watch. --Claire Dederer Read More