PIPER

Piper Scanlon, 15, is obnoxious, homely—and shattered by her mother’s sudden, violent death.

Kathryn Scanlon drowned in a hot tub when her long hair caught in the drain, half-scalping her (the adolescent narrator spares none of the gruesome details). But she wasn’t at home. The hot tub belonged to her husband’s boss, John Carlisle, owner of the local newspaper and scion of a distinguished family, whose roots go back to pioneer days in Washington State. Tom Scanlon, a likable failure and writer for the newspaper, worships John and refuses to believe that his charming, willful wife could have been having an affair with the man. But Piper doesn’t refuse. She’s wondered about her mother anyway, particularly since she’s always known she was adopted. Kathryn was rebellious by nature, an artist of sorts, and it was she who, years ago, persuaded her new husband to remain in her small hometown, and then never forgave him for his lack of ambition. Piper, musing over her mother’s behavior and the hypocrisy of adults in general, shocks the town by shaving her head, helps her eccentric granddad out with his pack of good-for-nothing dogs, and sulks—until a new scandal breaks. John Carlisle is accused of sodomizing several young boys. Though Piper and Tom don’t believe it, everyone else does. But Piper has better things to care about—especially when she discovers who her real father is and just how close he’s been all these years.

Keegan covered similar ground last time (Clearwater Summer, 1996), but this soapy plot has a lot less to recommend it. Piper is no Holden Caulfield, mostly because she talks and thinks more like a 50-ish male writer than a teenaged girl. And Keegan’s straightforward style and energy aren’t enough to make his masquerade work.