February 2016 Indie Next List Pick This snappy, sassy redemption story set in small-town Montana is “a wild and crazy debut novel by a talented young writer” (Jackie Collins), filled with an uproarious and unforgettable cast of characters you won’t want to leave behind. “[The Flood Girls] includes barfights and AA meetings, a parade, a wedding, and a black bear, all of which Fifield juggles beautifully...The Wild West earns its name all over again in this lovable chronicle of small-town insanity.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Welcome to Quinn, Montana, population: 956. A town where nearly all of the volunteer firemen are named Jim, where The Dirty Shame—the only bar in town—refuses to serve mixed drinks (too much work), where the locals hate the newcomers (then again, they hate the locals, too), and where the town softball team has never even come close to having a winning season. Until now. Rachel Flood has snuck back into town after leaving behind a trail of chaos nine years prior. She’s here to make amends, but nobody wants to hear it, especially her mother, Laverna. But with the help of a local boy named Jake and a little soul-searching, she just might make things right. In the spirit of Empire Falls and A League of Their Own, with the caustic wit of Where’d You Go, Bernadette thrown in for good measure, Richard Fifield’s hilarious and heartwarming debut will have you laughing through tears.
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Within the first few pages, the odd writing style turned me off. Sentences are confusedly structured, such as “She was tall, broad through the shoulders for a woman, but her hips were narrow.” But? It should be and in this case.
The example may seem nit-picky, but within the first 10 pages, little oddities kept leaping out at me, enough that I found myself exasperated and bored all at once.
Small towns and the Midwest are not only populated by drunks and deadbeats, which is the lens “The Flood Girls” has on. Perhaps, if the writing was better or the characters interesting, I'd continue with the book.
