IF IT WASN’T FOR THE ORANGE GROVE

Two women in 1980s Florida navigate their lives and relationships in Farrell’s novel.

Ula is a 26-year-old cook and seamstress in the employ of the Montgomerys, a prominent Southern family. The youngest Montgomery child is Casey, an attractive and freethinking college graduate who leaves Ula love letters and praises her cooking abilities. When a thunderstorm strikes during Ula’s shift, she and Casey share a romantic evening alone. Despite the Montgomerys’ distaste for one of their own having a relationship with a servant, Casey and Ula have clandestine dates and fall in love. Ula also works for Elizabeth Reynolds, a young wife and mother who is deeply dissatisfied with her marriage and life. Elizabeth met her husband, Ernest, as a teenager; after Ernest assaulted and subsequently impregnated her, he and Elizabeth quickly married. Now, despairing over his constant berating of her and his disinterest in their daughter, Genevieve, Elizabeth feels stuck. Against his mother’s wishes, Casey proposes to Ula and asks her to move with him to New Orleans. Elizabeth has her life upended by shocking news and conflicting feelings of grief. Farrell’s novel has the makings of a great story, but it falls flat in its execution. While there are attempts at descriptive language, the prose is merely sufficient—the writing, despite some of the heavier plot points, simply feels pitched too young for its intended audience (Casey tells Ula, “I like you a lot, Ula. You’re beautiful but also interesting”) and is more reliant on telling than showing (“Ula’s sultry voice also contained a playful undertone. It let Casey know she was happy to see him and enjoyed his company. It also expressed an intense attraction”). Additionally, the narrative lacks stakes; the characters are largely passive and thinly developed, and the story’s pacing is too rapid to invest in them.

The bones of a good premise with, sadly, little to back it up.