Some of Jolley's other works are classics of postmodern, self-reflexive literature, but are so much less showy and irritating than most such classics that I feel bad describing them in those terms. Foxybaby, unfortunately, isn't even a classic of ps-rl; it's just an exemplar. Alma Porch is going to teach at a weight-loss camp/college. On the way, she gets run off the road by a bus, and chaos ensues. But, 250 pages later, you'll learn she was only dreaming. It's all okay.

Now, Jolley is way too smart to be using the 'it was all just a dream' thing sincerely, but I have literally no idea why she does it. So I'll just move on.

The book is a play/film/novel within a novel (within, of course, a dream within a novel), with the striking oddity--as another goodreader has pointed out before me--that the outer, more 'real' layers are less realistic than the inner, ostensibly less real layers. The play/film/novel (which Alma is trying to write) is about a man trying to rescue his daughter and grandchild (who might also be his child) from heroin addiction and disco music. It might be the most boring thing I've ever read.

Our novel is a perfectly normal Jolley novel: isolated location, very few male characters, very few straight characters, and an endless parade of quirkiness. It's great fun, though I fear I'm getting diminishing returns with each Jolley novel I read.

But that inner layer takes up far too much time, and is far too dull, to be worth reading. There is some cross-over between the layers, which is later revealed to be caused by the fact that it's all just a dream, folks! So tiresome.

The book is interesting to think about, though. The college's head is Miss Peycroft, a classic Jolley creation (authoritarian, self-satisfied, slightly incompetent older lesbian cellist). And towards the end of the book we're asked if Peycroft might be just a bit too much, a bit too unrealistic? (because, duh, she's just in a dream, folks!). The interesting point here is that Peycroft might be entirely unrealistic, might be recognizably a Jolley type rather than a 'rounded character,' but she's still far more interesting than the less typical characters in the novel-within-the-novel. And that's what counts.

Also interesting stuff here, I'm sure, for those with a greater ability to believe that the unconscious/dreams/whatever are really important for the creative process. ( )

Amusingly absurdist, though I couldn't get into the "Foxybaby" plot-within-a-plot at all. ( )