Nancy S. (raney) reviewed on 5/11/2011 + 16 more book reviews

Notaro pulls off an engrossing farce with her first novel. The protagonist, Maye, leaves a perfectly fine life in the city to accompany her husband to a small town for his new university job. She soon learns it's not easy to be new, to make friends, to start over finding people to know and trust. Instead, she experiences snafu after snafu until she decides the one way to make friends is to enter and win the town's annual Sewer Pipe Queen pageant.

Notaro's townspeople are guaranteed to make you laugh, wince, smile and cringe. From the sleazy newspaper reporter (who works alone and hollers "CUT! at the end of his scenes) to the dog-baiting Yeti-like mailman to the dance-naked-in-the-moonlight lesbian witches to...oh, way too many great characters to list.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Thank goodness Notaro took time out from her essays to foray into fiction. It certainly lived up to the intriguing title.

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