Like a literary spice cake hot from the oven, Louise Redd¹s brilliant first novel, Playing the Bones, is both sweet and pungent, lusciously rich, and comforting at its conclusion. Lacy Springs, a well-educated daughter of snobby Dallas society, teaches eighth-grade English in Houston. She is engaged to be married to kind and stable Ellis, but can¹t abandon her desire for sultry and volatile blues star, Black Jesus. When the Black Jesus passion demons come and get her, she feels the skin of her throat flush, and a knotting and unknotting between her hip bones. ³I feel something like industrial-strength cleaning fluid in my stomach when I think of his hands cradling his harmonica. I feel my naturally red hair perspiring a secret shine.² Lacy is daring, honest, clever, whimsical, amusing, and most of all completely genuine. As I read, I kept wanting to meet her. I wanted to pick up the phone and invite her over for a beer, or better yet, dinner. Confused and pondering her direction in love (should she marry Ellis?), and trying to overcome a childhood trauma (at age seven she was raped by her baby-sitter, plump and ugly Donny), Lacy seeks the advice of a wacko therapist, Eva, a grad student clad in Velcro-turban who is working on her PhD in psychology. The Eva chapters are replete with fascinating observations and non-clichéd, extraordinarily funny psycho babble. It is here in Eva¹s office that Lacy confesses items on her mind-list, those numbers all-spiced and tangy as cinnamon throughout the book: ³Number 17 on my list: I write a hit blues song and Ray Charles sings it at the Grammys . . .² ³Number 22 on my list: I want something to accidentally interfere with my wedding . . .² ³On my list of One Hundred Things I want Out of Life, hearing a certain man say Œhey my baby¹ is Number 2.² She refers, in wish-list Number 2, to Black Jesus. We learn, too, that Lacy is turned on by e.e. cummings, blues, Shakespeare, and men named after gods. Like the chapter titles which Redd no-nonsensely ! and meaningfully assembled, the reader will find Lacy Springs a no-excuse, take-responsibility, overtly honest-to-herself woman. She faces her obstacles and makes no apologies for her mistakes. Redd has crafted the recovery part of the book without all the sugary-sweet syrup one might expect to find in a recovery book, which this novel is only in part. Playing the Bones is a strong-as-steel novel with a strong-as-steel protagonist who admits she can¹t know all the answers. What could be more human?

Wow. Playing the Bones is a spectacular read. Lacy is engaged to the nicest guy ever, but seemingly obsessed with Black Jesus, a blues star, and at first the reader doesn't like her very much. It's when she begins to examine her upbringing that Louise Redd's writing really shines. Lacy's mother is a worse character than Mommy Dearest; her sister Irene is a peach, too. Nacho the yard man is her salvation, and reminds Lacy of her worth when Mama is wreaking her worst on the children. What I loved about this book was its unflinching look at one of the most dysfunctional childhoods ever, and how through it all Lacy emerges as a whole person separate from all the men she's loved. It's kind of a coming-of-age woman's story, but also the story of what it means to survive hardship and learn the true meaning of love. A wonderful story, with some sharp-edged moments where I wanted to look away, but ended up glad I didn't.

Redd is a gutsy, funny, fearless, and distinctly edgy writer, and this is a memorable novel.

I came to PLAYING THE BONES in the course of researching the blues literary tradition (poems, novels, plays, memoirs). It is--and I cringe at the term, even as I use it for its general descriptive value--the Great Whitegirl's Blues Novel: firmly within a tradition limned by Zora Neale Hurston, Clarence Major, August Wilson, Wanda Coleman, Bebe Moore Campbell, Arthur Flowers, Mezz Mezzrow, B.B. King, J.J. Phillips, Mike Bloomfield, and others. Redd, in her fearlessness, probes the sex/violence nexus, those uncontainable Id-energies in which a certain kind of deep-blues expression is grounded, without flinching. Her description of a relationship between Black Jesus, a blues guitarist, and Lacy Springs, the whitegirl protagonist (and survivor of childhood sexual abuse), is hot & bothered, vexed by Black Jesus's dog-shooting and girlfriend-beating (he's Hurston's Tea Cake brought into the hip hop age); it's a womanist critique that stings, but it's also playful, real, sexy, with spiritual redemption in its sights.

This book BETTER stay in print, because I've had the pleasure of teaching it in one blues literature class so far (The New School in NYC) and plan to teach it again next spring.

First of all, somehow I came across this book...and did not see "A Novel", in the title. If I had known that I never would have ordered the book. I only wasted about two hours on this book, but was 1/2 done with it, when I realized it was fiction. Knowing that would make ME the stupid one. When I did come to the conclusion that this book was just a story, it was even more ridiculous. Since I stay away from fiction, what I can say about this book is why would you waste your time reading it, when they're are so many things to read about that are true and useful in your life. The author should write teen romance novels, that's what I remembered about it, I liked "Sweet Valley High" in junior high, this book is the "adult" version. When the character Faith was thinking about her wedding vows, her husband didn't say, "I do", he said, "It's my highest calling", I felt nauseated. The only good thing I can say is that at least I bought it used...

This novel seemed like the outpourings of a real woman coming to terms with her alcoholic husband. Should she leave him, should she struggle to make the marriage work even without him changing, or should she try harder to make him change? Of course she is flawed too, and like most humans, the reader won't always think *she* is taking the right path. That is what makes this book feel like a true autobiographical account.

Among other aspects of loving an alcoholic, the novel hints at the guilt when one partner stops heavy drinking and partying but the other doesn't or progressively drinks more. There is some self-hate due to feeling like a hypocrit. I think anyone who has loved an alcoholic, without being one his or herself, will see some of their experiences here. On the flip side, anyone who is tired of hearing complaints about their level of drinking may also finally HEAR what the "nagger" feels and is experiencing.

Like life, the story turns in ways you don't want it to and the characters change their minds when you don't expect them to or don't think they should. The author does not try to give answers to questions that have no answers. It is a comment on family, love, alcoholism, martyrism, and the different facets of an individual personalities (some which are hidden from all, some that are reserved for only the people the person loves).

Contrary to another reviewers comments, Jay DOES discuss AA, though briefly, and why he chooses to try to get sober with only the help of his independent group of supporters.

All-in-all this is about a very disturbing subject but life breathes through the pages. The author sprinkles in some light humor to loosen the mood. In a way, the book itself is a little support system for those that have an all too similar story and a wake-up call for those who may be going down the same path.

There are several points here that could be used in a discussion group. In fact, there are even some sample questions in the back if you want to use them in a reading group.

This book is a rare find, this story of Faith Evers' quest to see her marriage through the heartbreak of addiction, and to teach her beloved "student-athletes" at the University of Texas the correct usage of the word "hopefully." It is a tale of the myriad ways that people betray and care for one another. As a former teacher, I loved Redd's tender portrait of Faith's students--a lesser writer would have held these characters up to ridicule, particularly Corey, who is prone to heartfelt public prayer, but in Redd's capable hands these boys, like all good characters, are rich and funny and flawed and sweet. Faith's quest to keep hope alive for her marriage, for the very idea of eternal love, despite her husband's struggle with alcoholism, is always surprising. This is a wonderful book!