Single in Southeast Texas

Gretchen Johnson gives a sensitive and humorous account of dating in Southeast Texas. Paige, the heroine of the novel, is a young, recently divorced transplant from Minnesota and a professor of English Literature at Lamar University. Shes fascinated by the culture(s) of her adopted state and trying to find a suitable mate. Her take on singleness and the dating scene in Beaumont is alternately witty, hopeful, resigned, and philosophical. The dozen men Paige dates are as real as any of J.D. Vances hillbillies and as individualized as the folks old Studs Terkel used to interview. Her attitude toward Texas is overall optimistic, though shes aware of the racism, sexism, and classism which her students, her would-be lovers, and at times she herself see as simply natural. Johnson has a poets keen eye and ear, and something of Sarah Silvermans sense of humor.