Hangover Soup: A Novel - Hardcover

"I met my husband in college, where it's hard to tell who's a true alcoholic and who's not," explains Faith Evers, the deliciously astute narrator of Redd's second novel, which describes life with Jay Evers, a popular jazz DJ, a gorgeous man and an unrepentant drunk. In between her duties as head tutor for the "student-athletes" at the University of Texas-Austin (she calls them, affectionately, her "hired thugs"), Faith begs and nags Jay to quit drinking. After too many evenings "when Jay's face began to lose its structure, when forming a sentence and a smile required incredible effort and a long period of rest afterward," Faith very reluctantly leaves him. Jay then launches a "High on Wife" alcohol-free marathon at his radio station, trying hard to win her back by serenading and cajoling her over the air waves. His sobriety marathon is upbeat and jubilant until he discovers that Faith has slept with a grad student. Distraught, he embarks on a drinking binge that leads to vehicular homicide and a jail sentence. Friends and family want Faith to get a divorce. "Honey, that's what we call a starter marriage," says her aunt in New York. But Faith finds she can't stop loving Jay, in spite of his egregious faults. Then a chance meeting in a cemetery brings Faith into a tricky, unstable friendship with the husband of Jay's victim. Redd (Playing the Bones) intersperses comic relief when Faith works on grammar with her Texas sports stars, meanwhile guiding her story toward a horrifying climax and then to a sad but hopeful denouement. Expert pacing, pitch-perfect dialogue, fully dimensional minor characters and Redd's ability to depict the wondrous and the terrifying in everyday life create an immensely appealing narrative. Like the novel she inhabits, Faith Evers is wise, funny and utterly memorable. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Given all the emotional hardship Faith Evers endures, Hangover Soup could easily have been a dreary, whining novel. Thankfully, it isn't. The beauty of Redd's second novel (following Playing the Bones) is that it is tightly plotted and briskly paced, funny at times, raunchy at others. Set in Austin, TX, it traces the story of Faith's determined efforts to sober up her husband, Jay, a pot-smoking, beer-guzzling, poetry-quoting, smooth-talking DJ. Jay's on-air marathon toward sobriety starts off well but then takes a drastic turn when he finds out about Faith's brief night of unfaithfulness. Throughout, the novel is sprinkled with advice from Faith's mother, a tomato-growing guru, and enlivened with scenes of Faith's efforts to cram good grammar and basic science into the heads of the university athletes she tutors. Compelling, searching, realistic, and hopeful, this is a novel for all public libraries.AYvette Weller Olson, City Univ. Lib., Renton, WA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.