I recently downloaded and read the Kindle version of
Crazy For Trying, by Boxocto's own Joni Rodgers, and although it's been a while since she wrote it, I can say for sure that it still delivers. It's a story that is as big and wide and gorgeous as its Big Sky country setting. It is a punch to the solar plexus, unflinching on so many levels. Troubled and witty, and sometimes irreverent, it is the truly courageous exploration of one young woman’s journey through heartbreaking circumstances of loss and abandonment, of vulnerability and self doubt, to full-blown, joyous self-discovery.
Tulsa Bitters, the daughter of a famous, recently-deceased feminist, arrives in Helena, Montana with a dented heart, twenty bucks and a couple of guitars. She wants to hide and life gives her a plan, a way to do it in plain sight as “VA Lones”, Helena’s first female deejay. It’s the job she was born for, one she loves. Soon she meets Mac, a guy twice her age, and she loves him, too. As Tulsa, or Tuppy-my-guppy, as her famous mother affectionately called her, she might have lacked the confidence to take on such a job and the lover, but as VA, she can be bold--sort of. The relationship between Mac and Tulsa is no typical May-December affair. It’s a coming of age, a coming to terms for them both. It’s tender and tough; it takes side roads that twist off the heart’s ledge. A way is lost and then found only to drop into the dark night. A small town watches, or at times what is a full and colorful cast of players mixes in. As the reader, you become entangled, engrossed.
Joni’s voice is unique, a wry and beautiful gift, that breathes life into characters and a plot that is as vividly drawn and compelling as it is passionate. The ending is up for grabs. You might be surprised; you just might find yourself laughing through your tears. For more about Joni, visit her
website.
This month's Reader's Digest features a story about the day Gary and I met, and it's spurred a lot of interest in my memoir, Bald in the Land of Big Hair
