A Truly Funny Writer

"Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady" by Florence King St. Martin's Press 278 pages $13.95 (paperback)

Hers is a dry, understated wit and all the more welcome for that. Her father was English (East End docks, London,) her mother a Virginian, but the greatest Virginian of them all was her grandmother. Granny was determined to bring Florence up as a "perfect Southern lady" unlike her tomboyish daughter. To say these people are eccentric is understatement.

Granny is a lady because the silver is polished weekly (while dirty dishes are piled in the sink as the dust balls grow and grow.) When Florence was born, Granny insisted on coming to help out. She never left! Herbert (father) and Louise (mother) simply accepted the fact that "Granny is here." Friends and neighbors brought Granny items of clothing -- a corset here, a dress there -- until she was fullly moved in.

Herb was a nightclub musician and avid reader. Here he describes a high-pitched female: "That woman has a voice just like a castrated Irish tenor!" According to the writer, Southern women of that time spent a great deal of time talking about such as weird pregnancies and cravings, uteruses falling right out of the owner's body and so on. Herb called it "The Ovariad."

Louise, for her part, was just as funny in a different way. While watching the movie "Anna Karenina," she was heard to cheer, "Oh boy, here comes the train!" When Louise and Florence were walking home on a bitterly cold day, Florence whined that she was cold. "Get under my coat and walk with me," said Mamma. And she did until, unable to see all that well, she tripped and fell mouth down on the curb. The blow knocked all of her front teeth out. When Herb got home (at 2 a.m. from his dance band job) he asked if she'd taken Florence to the dentist. And Mamma roared, "If she doesn't have any goddamn teeth, why does she need a goddamn dentist?!"

Just an accounting of their daily lives might be funny, but when you throw in Southern expressions and customs, three generations of hard-headed women and one very calm man, you have a very good read ahead of you.

Florince did wind up something of a lady though. She said, "No matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked in the street." Neither did her mother who positively flew from park to park while tending her baby girl so as to perch on a bench and smoke her head off. She wasn't on the street!