RANSVESTIA

town. The sheriff keeps his door padlocked at all times, the fire department doesn't answer its phone, and for at least the last 28 years the citizens have been assuming there's a mayor, when there doesn't appear to be one. The big event is the annual Crape Myrtle Festival, although, as the town's most sensible character points out, crape myrtle resembles nothing so much as "chewed up, spit-out watermelon." This is the place that goes berserk over a Victorian lady who calls her acquaintances "dear heart" and who entertains a house guest so bizarre that her friends decide "we got to get this one up the hill fast before somebody spots her."

There are many moments in the book where we can relax and find ourselves borne effortlessly along, and there are always those moments when the voices reverberating from Timothy John's childhood begin to take over the airwaves. The writer has a particular gift for capturing the continuous low musical murmur of small town gossip: the ladies on their telephones, comparing opinions; telling secrets; sorting out the substance of other people's lives.

Some of the characters provide interesting insights: Sue Ella Lightfoot furthers her study of "sexual motives" with every issue of True Crime magazine, while Agnes Pullens drills young ladies in the finer arts of Dance and Charm, and Zeta Earl Goodridge faces a life of ruin if her Christmas yard display doesn't take first prize this year. Aided at every delectable turn by a cast of relent- less eccentrics, our heroine endures spectacular adventures, high drama, torment, ecstasy and a technicolor happy ending. Edward Swift has created a breathtakingly original novel that pulsates with rhythm and color. Splendora is a first-rate tale of entertainment that somersaults the bog of "social-normalcy" with laughter and grace.

Carol Beecroft

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