By Sharon Hori
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Whenever it seems like there’s nothing to do in Westwood,
just be thankful your life isn’t like the average Joe’s
in southern Georgia, as seen through the eyes of author Bailey
White.
Plant pathologist Roger Meadows becomes the talk of his southern
Georgia town when he’s pictured on the front page of
Agrisearch, holding two peanut plants, one sick and one healthy.
Apparently the photographer was supposed to take pictures of some
red wattle hogs in Sam Martin’s new automatic feeder pens,
but couldn’t get the doors open. A picture of Roger just had
to suffice.
Now, this may seem a little dry for the average L.A. dweller,
when in fact ““ well, it just is. But it’s also the
introduction to White’s latest novel, “Quite a Year for
Plums,” in which the hero, Roger, manages to snag a
front-page photo, as well as the attention of half the town’s
women.
But no matter how much of a stud Roger may seem to be ““
White writes that “for some reason the picture had come out
amazingly good in every respect” ““ Roger’s life
is not in picture-perfect order. That’s when White opens the
doors to Roger’s family, whose thrill-seeking lives lack good
direction.
The story kicks off like a miniature soap opera without the
breath-taking scandals ““ or maybe they’re just toned
down a little to adjust to the setting. The characters have no
difficulty identifying their struggles, but it’s frustrating
that they do nothing about them.
Roger’s ex-wife Ethel, a school teacher who left him for a
“little guitar-strumming nincompoop from Nashville with a
goatee” later runs off with a man who finds a drooling
fascination with electric fans. (Yes, readers will chuckle at this
fact until they find that White devotes an entire chapter,
“1914 General Electric Fan with Collar Oscillator,” to
this phenomenon, in which the fan man finds one more rotating
wonder for his collection.) Ethel’s mother, Louise, is a
half-crazed believer in outer-space aliens who insists that little
men painted her windows green.
And that’s where the novel loses its glow. White’s
hometown in southern Georgia is the setting where schoolteachers
gossip, wives run away with a new man every year, and old mothers
believe extraterrestrial life will invade their homes any day now.
Oh, and once in a while someone will host a library picnic or a
livestock convention ““ but until then, readers and townsfolk
will find themselves twiddling their thumbs.
The story does not delve deep into superfluous detail, nor does
the plot float at the surface of a superficial, unfulfilling read.
The light-weighted drama balances humor and conflict, tirelessly
treading without suspense to weigh it down.
And suspense is what the readers will crave. Not just the
overexaggerated action, such as when the fan man sneaks back into
the restaurant to steal a collector’s 1914 GE 940566 (you
daredevil, you!). Readers want fire, passion, action ““
elements that White’s novel lacks, leaving her unsatiated
audiences hanging and feeling indifferent.
Of course, the novel suggests some deeper underlying themes,
such as the need for transience and perseverance, but the tale is
lacking in substance. While we can sometimes relate to the
characters’ troubles (falling in love, suffering from
painter’s block, not having the electric fan of your dreams),
we are left alone with their troubles and their lack of
initiative.
White, author of national bestsellers “Mama Makes Up Her
Mind” and “Sleeping in the Starlite Motel,” is
also a commentator on National Public Radio. Her storytelling is
simple and sweet, tame enough for a fourth-grader. Unfortunately,
readers who look for anything more than that may have to move away
from southern Georgia.