White Palace--#24 finished

An interesting book about written in St Louis in the late 1980s when I first moved here for college.  It is a very much St Louis book, characters have a peculiar St Louis flavor to them--the West County well to do ad executive was married to an old money girl with parents in Ladue(I think) area.  He was Jewish and went to school at University High School with his buddies--also all Jewish(I think again). His young wife dies in a car accident and about a year later after not dating at all, meets up with an older hoosier type woman.  Hoosier was one of those not flattering words I heard a lot when I came here--not the hoosier of Indiana but a white trash type that was mostly found on the southside in St Louis or further south.  This lady is every bit of it--dropped out of high school, kinda fat, dirty--both upkeep & language, drinks & can hold her liquor, smokes & trashy sexy kind of way too.  The relationship is a train wreck for him except it breaks him out of his shell he was in since his wife died.  He is around 28 & new girlfriend is like 42.  Story and relationship is just a little too goofy or maybe just too unlikely--he keeps saying he loves her but the reader doesn't really get why.  The closest thing to it was she is similar to his mom, who still lives in the old and now changing neighborhood in U City.  Mom is also kind of a slob, which was probably why he was a neat freak.  Dad left when he was really young and he started taking care of mom as soon as he was old enough.  Now after wife died it is almost like he was looking for someone to take care of & found Nora, the older lady.

This book was made into a movie back then--late '80s or early '90s--filmed here in St Louis, I remember seeing the cars driving around Grand Ave doing filming back when I was in college.  Movie was ok, Susan Sarandon as Nora and James Spader as Max.

Oh well, not great read but certainly a keeper since St Louis based.  I will not be posting it on PBS, to the keeper shelf it goes.  Also this book is autographed, to a Pam, but I will still take it.