Bev Marshall Hot Fudge Sundae Blues

Hot Fudge Sundae Blues

Bev Marshall

Ballantine, Sep 2005, $13.95

ISBN: 0345468430

In 1963 at the Pisgah Methodist Church, thirteen years old Layla Jay week after week disappoints her grandma by not accepting Brother Thompson's offer of salvation. Grandma fears that her only grandchild will follow the sinning examples of her husband and her daughter. However when Jehu Albright comes to the church Layla Jay decides to impress this teenage Steve McQueen hunk of a boy by accepting Brother Thompson's prayers.

However God answers in mysertious ways as she sees Jehu with another "woman", her drunken mother marries Brother Wallace Ebert and is in a car accident, and grandma dies. When Ebert starts with twitching her nose and leering at her, but soon tries to rape Layla Jay, her mom intercedes with a 7-Up bottle. Life will never be the same in this household.

HOT FUDGE SUNDAE BLUES is more than a historical perceptive glimpse of the 1960s in small town Mississippi; although that provides the background, the tale is more a deep family drama that looks closely at love between extended kin in spite of flaws, and deception and dishonesty to hide these defects from loved ones. What makes a loving relationship is not just shared gene pool, but the ability to forgive not necessarily to forget even the biggest transgressions. Bev Marshall provides a powerful perspective of the good, the bad, and the ugly of human interactivity.

Harriet Klausner