The Empress of Cooke County
In the winter of 1966, thirty-eight-year-old Posey Burch Jarvis has had enough of her unglamorous Tennessee small-town life. Posey styles her hair, clothes and makeup after Jackie Kennedy and pines for the dashing and wealthy doctor, known as CJ, who seduced her at the tender age of nineteen. For too long she’s been married to much older Vern. He owns and runs a secondhand store. They live in a small suburban house with their eighteen-year-old daughter, Callie Jane.
Callie Jane is engaged to her lifelong best friend, Trace. Attractive Callie Jane was her high school valedictorian and almost the state’s spelling bee champ. She now wants much more than Trace or the house and kids that will soon follow. She moves out of the family home and angles to flee to California.
A distant aunt dies and leaves Posey the biggest house in the area with enough money to fix it up. Now Posey can plan in earnest the moves that will allow her to join the upper social circles and win CJ back. Tumblers of gin and the deep need to impress fuel Posey’s every move from start to finish.
Parman superbly teases out the good and bad sides of people. True-to-life secondary characters, Southern customs and foods, buzzing gossip, and a peeping Tom augment the larger themes. The two main plots (Posey’s quests and Callie Jane’s search for her own life) build through clever twists and turns. This novel effectively combines very human foibles, hilarious circumstances, and honest yearnings of the heart, with page-turning endings. Highly recommended.
