Patty Jane's House of Curl
- Book Review,
by Lorna Landvik
From Publishers Weekly
This debut novel's campy title promises good-natured gossip, women baring their souls and their gray roots to understanding hairdressers. Yet although Landvik builds her plot around two close-knit Minnesota sisters, Patty Jane and Harriet, she doesn't so much conjure a beauty shop as explain, in sentimental terms, how her kindhearted principals survive hardship. The story, which oscillates between optimism and tragedy, begins in 1953, at Patty Jane's wedding to handsome Norwegian Thor; that evening, the bride becomes pregnant, frightening her husband and eventually prompting his mysterious disappearance only days before their daughter is born. Meanwhile, Harriet falls in love with Avel, a doting millionaire. They're blissfully happy together, so when Avel goes on a business trip just before their scheduled nuptials, it's a sure bet his plane will crash. The ensuing years pass quickly as the sisters adjust to single life. Patty Jane opens the eponymous salon and raises her daughter, while Harriet, who never quite gets over Avel, develops a drinking problem. Both women will love again, but new troubles are in store. Landvik uses the latter half of the book to grandstand against alcohol and cigarettes; the characters praise AA, and one key player succumbs to lung cancer. Everyone finds consolation in the homespun wisdom that peppers every page ("grief is a lot like sobriety; you get through it one day at a time"). Family bonds?if not beauty-salon solidarity?triumph in this unpretentious tale. British rights to Little, Brown UK. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this upbeat novel about two sisters living in Minnesota between the 1950s and the 1980s, Patty Jane marries young, is abandoned by her husband, and lives with baby daughter Nora and mother-in-law Ione. Patty Jane's sister, Harriet, is engaged to a millionaire, who is killed in an airplane crash just before the wedding. When Patty Jane opens a beauty parlor called "The House of Curl," it quickly becomes the locale of a women's support group. The women gossip, take a variety of classes at the beauty parlor, and console one another when needed. Harriet becomes an alcoholic and lives in the streets until she is saved by a policeman and falls in love again. Patty Jane falls in love with her male manicurist and is jolted when her missing husband reappears. This first novel by former stand-up comic Landvik portrays the vicissitudes of life, the bonding of women, and the ties of family. While sometimes predictable, it is always amusing and should appeal to a large audience.Stephanie Furtsch, New Rochelle P.L., N.Y.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Lorna Landrik's quirky sense of humor and even quirkier performance in Patty Jane's House of Curl make this audiobook a laugh-out-loud treat for listeners' ears. In this story of two sisters and their unlikely loves, Landrik weaves a hilarious tale of how relationships can affect us in the most bizarre fashion. Timing is everything in comedy, and Landrik gives her performance as though she were the spitfire star of a sitcom. She takes care to give each character a distinct voice and personality beyond what's written in the text. Most important, perhaps, is that nestled amid the wacky accents and one-liners is the lesson of how important a community of peers is to our sanity. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Review
"Fun and funny, spiked with tragedy and sad times."
--USA Today
"A FUNNY, POIGNANT FIRST NOVEL ABOUT THE BONDS BETWEEN WOMEN."
--Houston Chronicle
"WARM, TENDER, ULTIMATELY INSPIRATIONAL."
--West Coast Review of Books
"HOMESPUN WISDOM PEPPERS EVERY PAGE."
--Publishers Weekly
"PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF CURL has the emotional warmth of Lake Wobegon and the tender/tough female characters who populated Fried Green Tomatoes. . . . A unique story."
--Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Review
"Fun and funny, spiked with tragedy and sad times."
--USA Today
"A FUNNY, POIGNANT FIRST NOVEL ABOUT THE BONDS BETWEEN WOMEN."
--Houston Chronicle
"WARM, TENDER, ULTIMATELY INSPIRATIONAL."
--West Coast Review of Books
"HOMESPUN WISDOM PEPPERS EVERY PAGE."
--Publishers Weekly
"PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF CURL has the emotional warmth of Lake Wobegon and the tender/tough female characters who populated Fried Green Tomatoes. . . . A unique story."
--Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Book Description
Patty Jane Dobbin should have known better than to marry a man as gorgeous as Thor Rolvaag, but she was too smitten to think twice. Yet nine months into their marriage, with a baby on the way, Thor is gone. It's a good thing Patty Jane has her irrepressible sister, Harriet, to rely on. For it's been said that a fine haircut can cure any number of ills, and before long the Minnesota sisters have opened a neighborhood beauty parlor complete with live harp music and an endless supply of delicious Norwegian baked goods. It's a wonderful, warmhearted place where you can count on good friends, lots of laughter, tears, and comfort when you need it--and the unmistakable scent of somebody getting a permanent wave. . . .
From the Publisher
What a wonderful treat of a book! I picked this one up by chance--the title alone is intriguing--and I read it cover-to-cover, and I laughed and I cried! I gave my copy to my sister, who read it, loved it, and passed it on to her mother-in-law, and so on . . . and so on. Then my sister went out and bought Lorna Landvik's second book, and we're all anxiously awaiting her next one! Eileen Gaffney, Associate Managing Editor
From the Inside Flap
Patty Jane Dobbin should have known better than to marry a man as gorgeous as Thor Rolvaag, but she was too smitten to think twice. Yet nine months into their marriage, with a baby on the way, Thor is gone. It's a good thing Patty Jane has her irrepressible sister, Harriet, to rely on. For it's been said that a fine haircut can cure any number of ills, and before long the Minnesota sisters have opened a neighborhood beauty parlor complete with live harp music and an endless supply of delicious Norwegian baked goods. It's a wonderful, warmhearted place where you can count on good friends, lots of laughter, tears, and comfort when you need it--and the unmistakable scent of somebody getting a permanent wave. . . .
From the Back Cover
"Fun and funny, spiked with tragedy and sad times."
--USA Today"A FUNNY, POIGNANT FIRST NOVEL ABOUT THE BONDS BETWEEN WOMEN."
--Houston Chronicle"WARM, TENDER, ULTIMATELY INSPIRATIONAL."
--West Coast Review of Books"HOMESPUN WISDOM PEPPERS EVERY PAGE."
--Publishers Weekly"PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF CURL has the emotional warmth of Lake Wobegon and the tender/tough female characters who populated Fried Green Tomatoes. . . . A unique story."
--Saint Paul Pioneer Press
About the Author
Lorna Landvik is also the author of the bestselling Your Oasis on Flame Lake and the upcoming The Tall Pine Polka. She has worked as an actor, a comedian, and a speed typist in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She lives with her husband, two daughters, and their dog, Petunia.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
PATTY JANE KEPT a drawer full of cotton bandanas spritzed with dimestore perfume - Tabu and Evening in Paris and, occasionally, My Sin, which I thought was a chic as chic could get. I helped out at the House of Curl after school and on Saturdays. Whenever anyone stank up the place with a permanent wave, I would be called upon to distribute the bandanas and tie them carefully, the way a nurse ties a doctor's surgical mask, over the nose and mouth of our customers. Everyone in the shop wore them (except for Clyde Chuka, the manicurist, who said Tabu gave him a worse headache than permanent-wave solution) so that the room looked overtaken by a bunch of Old West bandits assembled for a Dippety-Doo heist.
"Scented kerchiefs are one of the nice touches that separates our establishment from the others," Patty Jane often said. Other nice touches included homemade banana bread served with coffee to women basting under hair dryers; pale green smocks monogrammed with the initials of our regulars (we kept a supply of less personalized smocks--"V.I.P" and "First Lady"--on hand for walk-ins); and harp concerts courtesy of my Aunt Harriet, whose accompaniment to my bandana distribution was always the William Tell Overture.
Patty Jane, my mother, was big on nice touches.
"For cripes' sake," she said, "if you can't be a class act, why bother?"
She studied what society news was to be found in the Minneapolis Star as if she were a candidate for a PhD in High Living; she drove her rattly old DeSota around Lake of the Isles, picking out mansions she would live in were her inheritance more sizable than a pair of turquoise cuff links and an incomplete set of 1947 World Books; she tried on designer dresses at Dayton's Oval Room and Powers and then had my grandmother sew up copies on her heavy black Pfaff sewing machine.
"Just because my life began in the bargain basement," she said, "doesn't mean I can't take the escalator to Fine Crystals."
Truth be told, if my mother were to spend any time in Fine Crystals, it was guaranteed something would break.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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