Struggling to evacuate Savannah as a Category Four hurricane bears down, Ramona, along with her entourage, navigates police check points, bathroom emergencies, demands from her boss, torrential downpours and calls from her cheating ex, while wishing for the days when her life was like a Prince song.
Ramona Arnold has got it all…except Prince.
The pop god in purple and paisley that she and her gay best college bud Christopher worshipped is gone. Which makes everything else going on in her life that much worse.
What does Ramona have?
For starters, there’s her husband Desmond whose affair she walked in on in her kitchen has brought about her own, very sudden midlife crisis. There’s the other woman Sarah Ellen, who won’t stop calling her cell phone, asking her for relationship advice, apparently thinking they’ve bonded. They have not.
There are her two young children whom she loves but who run her ragged and who won’t stop asking when Daddy’s coming home after Ramona, unknowingly to them, chucked him out. There’s her mother Adelaide with her stubborn streak, her pets, and her gun (since when?) who now thinks she’s Southern since moving to Savannah to be closer to Ramona and the grands. (She’s from Delaware.) Bailey, the 16-year old neighbor kid whose mother seems mysteriously absent. Clarence Thomas (not that one), a classroom pet – a guinea pig – for which Ramona is now temporarily responsible. (Don’t get her started on its name.)
And Kenneth her boss, who expects her to navigate myriad work “crises” while the crisis of all crises Hurricane Matthew, a menacing Category 4 storm, is barreling towards Savannah and everything that Ramona holds dear.
Throw in a good case of hurricane denial (No need to panic.); a well-meaning but very anxious friend hounding her to get out of Dodge yesterday; and a pernicious check engine light in her van (now her only mode of transportation), and you’ve got the makings for some very palpable, cut-it-with-a-chainsaw angst.
The issues Ramona experiences are enough to leave one frazzled if encountered solo at the best of times, but for her, they converge to form three harrowing, very no good days.
She begins to wonder what the college Ramona would think of herself now.
And what happened to her exactly?
In None of This Would Have Happened if Prince Were Alive, author Carolyn Prusa creates believable characters and excels at crafting tension in her debut novel. She sustains that tension throughout, leaving at least one storm-impacted reader exasperated: “Just leave, already.” Who stops to play mini-golf mid-hurricane evacuation anyway?
One remembers, though, that Ramona is doing her best. Or is she?
Prince is gone, yes, but she’s not. Nothing will be the same after Hurricane Matthew, and that just might not be so bad.
- Katina, Area Librarian
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