(5 of 5)
The amazement that anyone so young could write a publishable novel seems slightly condescending, of a piece with the sentiment behind a chauvinistic remark of Samuel Johnson's: "A woman's preaching is like a dog walking on its hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." In fact, most of Necessary Madness is done very well indeed, at least within the restrictions of its genre. Crowell keeps her plot moving briskly along, and her narrator gets off some good lines. Looking back on her teenage fling with punk fashions, she notes, "I graduated second in my high school class, which meant that I had the distinction of being the school's first purple-haired salutatorian."
But certain passages in the novel, particularly those dealing with the husband's slow death, suggest that Crowell is ready to break free of conventions and find her own way. --P.G.