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 and motorcycle leathers, along with pop culture of the times: the music and persona of Madonna, the books of Jackie Collins and the soap opera drama of Erica Kane. Jake's eccentricities make him a misfit, but also a perceptive observer--especially from his rooftop hangout where he seeks refuge from his family and spies on who is "having affairs with the UPS man, who was eating too much when they thought nobody was watching, who was stealing checks from mailboxes."
When Jake's neighbor Frank--"the shyest person in Quinn"--dies, Frank's estranged daughter, Rachel Flood, a once-notorious boozer and floozy, returns to Quinn nine years after her high school graduation. She comes to claim her inheritance, which consists of Frank's dilapidated house trailer plagued with black mold and his 1978 Ford Granada. Rachel, a blonde bombshell, had once been "hell-bent on destroying herself, and she had mostly avoided collateral damage. She had never killed a family of four while drunk driving, had never left a baby to freeze to death in a car while drinking at a bar in the middle of winter. She was a relatively good person, had only broken hearts and occasionally the law."
Against the advice of her Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, sober Rachel sets out to redeem herself and 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. The pub employs a crew of brash, sharp-tongued barmaids--with names like Martha Man Hands, Red Mabel and Black Mabel--who moonlight on the bar's softball team, the Flood Girls. When Laverne is injured in a gun fight, Rachel, in her quest for redemption, gets roped into taking over the Dirty Shame in her mother's absence, and reluctantly enlisted to play for the Flood Girls, who are in search of a winning season. Will Rachel's former neighbors, coworkers and friends continue to hold grudges and make her life miserable? When Rachel befriends Jake--the record-keeper for the softball team, who is also the team's "heart" and "good luck charm"--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
Shelf Talker: A Montana town is turned upside-down when a reformed outcast returns to claim an inheritance and make amends for her sordid past.