Maria T Lennon Making It Up As I Go Along

Making It Up As I Go Along

Maria T Lennon

Shaye Areheart(Crown), Jun 2005, $21.00

ISBN: 1400081904

After globetrotting the world as a War correspondent thirty-eight years old Saffron "Saffy" Roch returns home to Santa Monica with a newborn Halla but with no partner as the father Dr. Oscar remains in Sierra Leone. She feels out of place in the Los Angeles area especially when she meets other nursing mothers at the renowned Santa Monica Pump Station.

Saffy's adoptive mom recently passed away disinheriting her hippie offspring Francis leaving the estate including Malibu Beach property to Saffy with the stipulation she never gets back with Oscar. When another former lover African Joseph Hanna, is incarcerated as a traitor, Saffy decides to intervene by buying his freedom, but must sell the Malibu estate to raise the cash. Meanwhile Francis, pretending to be her friend, obtains help from Saffy's biological mother and Oscar to cheat her out of her inheritance. While nursing, Saffy and Halla go to Africa to prevent an execution.

MAKING IT UP AS I GO ALONG uses contrasts to tell the story of the civil war in Sierra Leone. On one hand is Saffy struggling with American style motherhood amidst the Southern California trophy wives. Though moving between now in chick lit L.A. and then in ravaged Sierra Leone costs continuity, the technique enhances the comparative analysis base of an emphatic storyline.

Harriet Klausner