SPLIT SKIRT

Humane fiction by a writer whose compassion runs widely and absorbs the reader. Rossi wrote the well-received The Quick: A Novella and Stories (1992). The title does not really tell much about this novel, pointing only to its sexual frankness. Two housewives spend a weekend together in jail, one for shoplifting, the other for drunk driving and a minor cocaine bust. If this is a turning point in both their lives, that's only suggested, because Rossi uses the moment to summarize how they have become who they are and refuses to nail down their futures. Quite well-to-do, middle-aged Mrs. Tyler cannot help her sprees of shoplifting; she's much like a drunk who is sober most of the time but goes on benders when anxieties crest and she needs emotional shoring up. Rita is the second wife of Alex; he has two children by his first wife and has fallen back in love with her. Rita feels treated like a mistress or girlfriend on the side. One payday night she goes out with the girls, gets drunk, coked up, nearly raped, then is arrested for drunk driving and possession. Serving her three-day sentence, she reveals her life to Mrs. Tyler, who reveals her own to Rita. Mrs. Tyler, against her husband's wishes, has determined to accept her weekend sentence without a fight, hoping that it will break her compulsion and somehow balance her husband's recent sins as a would-be middle-aged philanderer. Rita meanwhile gains a friend in Mrs. Tyler but loses her husband, who is not there to meet her when she's released. Rossi tenderly parts these entwined lives while refraining from highly charged moments or excessive stylization. She has all the gifts and now must seek an absolutely personal voice that stamps a page as her own.