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Summary
Summary
When Wesley Lloyd Springer passed away, he left his proper Southern wife two legacies. The first, as befits a gentleman of means, is the whole of his sizeable estate. The second, so astonishing thereupon hangs this wonderful and witty tale.
Miss Julia, recently bereaved and newly wealthy widow, is only slightly bemused when one Hazel Marie Puckett appears at her door with a youngster in tow. But this perfectly practiced composure is quickly reduced when Hazel Marie unceremoniously announces her intentions: the child is Wesley Lloyd's bastard son and, since the man left her penniless, she's leaving little Lloyd in Miss Julia's care. Suddenly, this longtime church member and pillar of her small community finds herself in the center of an unseemly scandal -- and the guardian of a wan nine-year-old whose mere presence will turn her life upside down.
With razor wit and perfect Steel Magnolia poise, Miss Julia speaks her mind indeed -- about a robbery, a kidnapping, and all the other disgraceful goings-on that are precipitated by her husband's death. Fast-paced and charming, with a sure sense of comic drama and a cast of crazy characters, this beguiling novel will delight readers from first page to last.
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
An apparent comedy of errors that gradually reveals itself to be a comedy of greed and calculation, by the author of The Pilgrimage (1987). Julia Springer suffered through 44 years of a woebegone marriage before she could spread her wings and emerge as her true self'a merry widow. After husband Wesley's recent death, Julia found that she'd been named his sole beneficiary. Which was a surprise, given Wesley's low opinion of Julia's financial capabilities, but not so astounding as the size of the estate itself. Now a rich woman with no domestic restraints, Julia is set to enjoy the remainder of her years in quiet style, flipping idly through the Neiman-Marcus catalogue as she expertly fends off investment bankers and begging philanthropists. One day, however, her peace is interrupted by a knock on the door: a young woman named Hazel Marie Puckett introduces herself as Wesley's longtime mistress and, before Julia has time to absorb the shock, departs, leaving her nine-year-old son Wesley Jr. on Julia's doorstep. What to make of all this? Julia contacts the police and her lawyer straightaway'and discovers to her horror that everyone in town knew about Wesley's decade-long affair. He had even set up Hazel Marie in a little house, which was not mentioned in the will and from which Hazel Marie and the boy have now been evicted. Furious, Julia decides to take her revenge the only way she knows how: by keeping the boy and acknowledging him as her husband's bastard son. But then the plot thickens. A creepy televangelist, Brother Vern, kidnaps the boy, and Julia and Hazel Marie team up to get him back. Wesley Sr.'s will wasn't so straightforward, after all. And Julia learns from her pastor that she's something called a nymphomaniac. Is there any way out of such a mess? Good-natured entertainment, done with a sharp eye for the details of small-town southern life and domestic melodrama.
