The Madhatter's Guide to Chocolate - Softcover

DeVane, Rhett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0974303909 ISBN 13: 9780974303901

Publisher: Rabid Press, 2003

Synopsis

Welcome to the town of Chattahoochee, Florida. Imagine living down the road from a mental institution and growing up in a world still drenched in the traditions of the South.

For Hattie Davis, she couldn't wait to get away. Returning home for her mother's funeral, she is drawn in by the arrival of a dear and flamboyant childhood friend, Jake Witherspoon. Despite the unfortunate situation that has brought them together, a memoir of an old family friend inspires them to join forces and take the town by storm.

Yet their new entrepreneurial lives are brutally interrupted when Jake is kidnapped and beaten by two local teenage boys. Apparently, the discovery of Jake's homosexuality comes easier for Hattie than some others. This touching tale of a Southern town's revival and a woman's coming of age--even over the hill--is something you will laugh, cry and cheer over.

Interwoven with an air of magical realism, The Madhatter's Guide to Chocolate is a rich tale of small town humor, tragedy, and the extraordinary twists of fate. Take a trip through the looking glass and come home to the South.

About this title

About the Author

Rhett DeVane is a true Southerner, born and raised in the piney woods of the North Florida panhandle. Originally from Chattahoochee, Florida, she now lives in Tallahassee where she is completing a series of Southern fiction novels. Rhett is owned by two cats, Sisko and Saki, and a rescued Florida Cracker Retriever named Shelly.

From Booklist

DeVane's small-town southern tale of hatred, chocolate pecan pies, humidity, and humanity is shot through with a praline-flavored magic realism and peppered with recipes. National media attention after the brutal beating of local homosexual Jake, Hattie Davis' friend from childhood, brings about all manner of self-realizations in this engaging, swift-moving novel. There is heroine Hattie's, of course, and also those of several of her fellow townspeople. Readers of this first in a prospective series of novels set in the Florida panhandle, where DeVane was born and raised, will revel in its atmosphere and such twists as the fact that the village idiot is canny enough to appreciate that because he is so easily disregarded, he becomes invisible and, therefore, stands to see more than others. Reminiscent of Like Water for Chocolate (1991) but featuring prejudice against "fagots" (readin', writin', and 'rithmetic in 1960s Chattahoochee, Florida, leave a bit to be desired). Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Rabid Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0974303909
• ISBN 13: 9780974303901
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288