The hardscrabble town of Quinn, Mont. (population 956), serves as the backdrop for The Flood Girls, the first novel by Richard Fifield. He sets his story in 1991, and his grasp of the intricacies--and often oppressive nature--of small-town life shine through the perspective of Jake Bailey, a precocious 12-year-old fixated on polyester leisure suits, motorcycle leathers, Madonna, Jackie Collins and the soap opera drama of Erica Kane. Jake's eccentricities make him a misfit, but also a perceptive observer.
When Jake's neighbor Frank dies, Frank's estranged daughter, Rachel Flood, a once-notorious boozer and floozy, returns to Quinn nine years after her high school graduation. She wants to claim her inheritance, which consists of Frank's dilapidated house trailer plagued with black mold and his 1978 Ford Granada. Against the advice of her Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, sober Rachel sets out to make restitution for her past. It's a tall order, especially when she tries to make amends with her mother, Laverne, the crude, unforgiving owner of the Dirty Shame, one of two local watering holes. When Laverne is injured in a gunfight, Rachel gets roped into taking over the Dirty Shame, and reluctantly enlisted to play for the Flood Girls, who are in search of a winning season. When Rachel befriends Jake--the record-keeper for the softball team--he helps Rachel claw her way back into the fold of the backwoods little town she thought she had escaped.
Caustic wit, absurd plot turns and an ensemble cast of riotous characters infuse this outlandish yet moving novel about the hard-bitten bonds of community. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines