Make sure you come see Jami Attenberg read with us on Sunday, February 28 with Steve Almond.
“Everyone’s a little damaged, honey.” No truer words are spoken in the small world of “The Melting Season,” a quirky soap opera that proves surprisingly endearing.
At 25, and naïve for her age, Catherine Madison is on the lam from a failed marriage as the novel opens, fleeing west from her snowbound hometown in Nebraska with a suitcase full of loot. Catherine has been rejected by her husband, the high school sweetheart she married too young, who is angry because she makes him feel like a sexual failure. In retribution she cashes in their savings, and when she reaches Las Vegas in a bit of a daze, she checks into a fancy hotel and commences spending the money at the urging of Valka, a flashy woman from California whom she meets in a casino.
Valka encourages her young friend to confront the truth about her toxic upbringing and her resultant sexual neuroses. We expect this tale, with its mismatched characters and farfetched plot elements, to crumble under its own slender weight, but oddly and heartwarmingly, Jami Attenberg makes it work.
Click here to see the rest of this review from The Boston Globe.