Page 12 February 2020
Book Clubbing a review by Diane Adkins
Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
It’s not a spoiler to tell you that in the prologue of this book, we see Evvie Drake loading her car with wads of cash and her suitcase, ready to leave her husband. Her phone rings and she learns he has just been killed in a car accident. That’s not the typical way to start a romance novel. Linda Holmes is best known as the host of the NPR show Pop Culture Happy Hour. This is her first novel, and despite the dark beginning, it’s a smart, funny book. If you’ve heard Holmes on the radio, you know she’s quick-witted and that translates to “snap” in the dialogue. The characters sound like real people. Even better, they seem to be people you’d enjoy knowing. The book is set in small-town Maine, where no one knows that Evvie’s husband, Tim, a well-liked doctor, was emotionally abusive to her. Her dad, Frank, doesn’t know. Her best friend, Andy, doesn’t either. Evvie cannot bring herself to tell the truth about her marriage, now that Tim is dead, and that sets up one of the central conflicts in the book. Andy suggests that his high-school friend and former major league baseball star pitcher Dean Tenney could move into an apartment Evvie has in her house, and she agrees primarily because she needs the money. Dean is in town to escape the scrutiny of the press and public over his failed career. He has developed a case of the “yips”—a non-technical term denoting a sudden loss of the ability to do something a person has mastered. In Dean’s case, he can no longer pitch a baseball over the plate successfully. Holmes said in an interview, “I think everybody has that moment where they think, ‘What I thought my life was going to be is not quite what it’s going to be.’ And those are both very difficult moments, and moments that lead you to something that’s more true.” Dean and Evvie are both on paths of discovery, trying to come to terms with their pasts while finding a way forward. This is, in short, a love story for grown-ups with humor, warmth, and (sorry, Dean) perfect pitch. Diane S. Adkins is a retired Director of the Pittsylvania County Library System. Next month, we will look at the Zora Canon—a list of the one hundred best books by African-American women authors as chosen by the editors of Zora.
