American Book Review

Mary Troy, whose previous works of fiction were collections of short stories, works in the novel form with her recently published Beauties. Two generations of Stillwell women think of themselves as “beauties.” Five are and two are not, but all are unwilling to admit that the family myth may contain elements of social artifice. The beauties who serve as the book’s narrators, alternating chapter by chapter, are Shelly (more formally, Michelle) and Bev (short for Beverly). Shelly is, by anyone’s definition, gorgeous. Married twice, she’s looking for a new start and to find her calling. She’s the only person who was surprised by her second divorce. The rest of the family—two generations of Stillwells who enjoy being in each other’s business way too much for Shelly’s comfort—had been speculating about what to do with Shelly long before her husband actually left her. Their collective plan is to foist Shelly off on Bev. The two cousins have never been close, but Bev, who has a birth defect as a result of her mother’s use of meds for nausea during her pregnancy, has just received a significant settlement from the lawsuit and has decided to use part of the money to open The Alibi Café in a less than savory neighborhood in southern St. Louis. The hints of local color include two female do-gooders who come into the inner city to run a thrift shop; Toby, a young African American male, who gets so close to Bev’s heart that she wants to adopt him; Ted, who Shelly believes is a food critic, and who becomes yet another misguided romantic relationship for her; Mike, the African American neighbor who plays hymns by night, has various aliases, and who Bev comes to trust more than the local police; and the list of one-named characters who come become semi-regulars at the café. Set during the one year and four months of the twentieth century, the novel is reminiscent of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987) and Flannery O’Connor’s short fiction. (Like Flagg, Troy wants the novel to be accessible, and like O’Connor, Troy understands the beauty of the grotesque.)

Troy wants the novel to be accessible and understands the beauty of the grotesque.

The novel’s strengths are the sly bits Troy’s characters toss at one another and the truths those bits reveal about the characters’ self-images. Mike, giving unwanted advice to Maddie (a pregnant teenager who was once Bev’s student), offers his own parents absolution and makes peace with his lack of upbringing, telling her, “They were dumb as rocks. Dumber. I’ve wasted lots of time cursing them for being so inept, but they were just horny children. What did I expect? Competence?” Troy wants the reader to understand how her characters, even minor characters, became who they are; she wants readers to love her characters despite their flaws and their slowness in learning from their mistakes. Troy is gentle with her creations, allowing them to reveal themselves over the course of the alternating narratives.

The greater arc of the novel would have been better served if the story had been edited more tightly. Bev wants everything—to leave behind a lawsuit filed while she was still teaching; to build a small, community business; to seduce Mike; and to adopt Toby, creating an instant family—at once. Shelly wants to recover from her marriage, find love again, move to Montreal, then France, for cooking school, and return to The Alibi Café with her new found expertise to help Bev keep the enterprise afloat. There are also subplots involving the other Stillwell beauties, including the well-worn death in the family, which allows readers to see all of the Stillwell women—who have been alluded to—together for a couple of chapters. While there are some good one-liners and small truths, the novel ultimately fails at engaging the...