QUEEN BEE OF MIMOSA BRANCH

Fifty-year-old divorcée starts over, in a lackluster first hardcover from Smith.

Lucky for Linwood Scott that her parents have plenty of room in their decaying Victorian house. She has no money, no degree, no technical skills, no work experience, and crumbling knees. What is she going to do now that her good-for-nothing husband has run away with a stripper and left her penniless? She never thought she’d have to slink back to Mimosa Branch, Georgia, and throw herself on the mercy of her eccentric family. And sitting around on the verandah isn’t as much fun as it used to be, what with her senile uncle skipping around clad only in adult diapers (much of the humor here has to do with incontinence and vaginal dryness). And her hometown isn’t the same now that the old autoshop has morphed into a trendy café and her friend Cassie has come out as a lesbian and creator of large, alarming sculptures of toothed vaginas. Lin’s job interview at the temp agency is a predictable disaster, since she can’t type or use a computer. Maybe she can clerk at the general store, now owned by Grant Owens, who might even become her new beau, given a little encouragement. But after buying naughty lingerie for what she hopes will be a steamy sex romp with Grant, Lin dissolves into a nervous giggling fit that wilts her would-be lover’s manhood. Then Lin’s outraged when Grant adds up the cost of their enchanted evening and calls her a tease. A grave insult, apparently, to this doughy southern belle. Finally, the truth hits her “like a pickup sending a possum to glory on I-85”: Grant Owens is just like her philandering ex—a charming, self-absorbed, arrested adolescent. What to do? Cry some more, and keep on whining. . . .

Derivative plot, limp humor, dull heroine.