Foxybaby-Elizabeth Jolly

Foxybaby
Elizabeth Jolly
Persea, Nov 9 2010, $15.00
www.persea.com
ISBN: 9780892553631

Trinity College hires novelist Alma Porch to teach a summer seminar at the school’s Better Body Though the Arts program. Her students are all overweight women wanting to lose weight. However, her first day at the college starts off with a bang when Miss Porch rams in the back of bus leaving her vehicle disabled and escape futile. She meets her roommate Mrs. Castle who cannot take a breath without talking about her darling three grandchildren; who after fifteen minutes Miss Porch loathes sight unseen. .

She introduces her class that seem to exclusively include gays and lesbians only to what Miss Porch believes will soon be a classic drama, "Foxybaby" that she is still writing, but insists the students perform. The story line focuses on a sandwich generation single mom on the run with her child and her father. Although her preference is classical music like punk and hard rock to accompany her play, school director Mrs. Peycroft and her friend Miss Paisley intrude.

This is a reprint of a 1985 character study that uses hyperbole to satirize relationships. The story line is an amusing Australian absurd musing on relationships between lonely souls. Although at times the need to connect with others is confusing due to extreme sublime understatement, Foxybaby is an intelligent humorous look at people’s basic needs to relate to others, but not always in a positive way.

Harriet Klausner