Ruby Pearl's book is, typically, the story of her life: school, work, friends. It has been a long strange trip. A wild sixties girl, Ruby Pearl married four times, with varying degrees of success, the worst being to an Alabama politician who was a lousy husband in every respect, while at home and when away.
By Don Noble
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/national/local-national-928071.mp3
Audio ?2010 Alabama Public Radio
Writing comic fiction is hard, a rare art, especially extended, novel-length comic fiction. We enjoy the work of Dave Barry or the late Lewis Grizzard, but those pieces are 500 words long and if you don't like it there will be another one tomorrow. I have always thought the Brits do the comic novel better. Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis, Tom Sharpe, David Lodge, Malcolm Bradbury and the exquisitely funny P.G. Wodehouse, author of the Wooster and Jeeves books, have no equals in the U.S.
It is still a good thing to try, however, and deserves our attention.
This novel, published under a pen name, is actually the work of an accomplished Alabama novelist from Fairhope, one who has published both highly erotic and comic fiction.
The true identity of this writer can be ascertained by looking at the title page of Second Sluthood or checking the River City webpage. It was hoped, perhaps, that the nom du plume would generate a certain mystique and the Ruby Pearl Saffire brand would catch on like the Sweet Potato Queen books, but this novel would have to be designated an x-rated sweet potato.
The subtitle of this compact volume says a lot: A Manifesto for the Post-Menopausal, Pre-Senilic Matriarch.
The narrator, Ruby Pearl, is now a woman of a certain age, that is, over 50. Society might prefer that she just shut up and go quietly, but Ruby Pearl believes she has an action-packed future, if she can just get it under way.
There are two areas in which Ruby Pearl especially wants to be active.
The first is writing.
A retired middle-school teacher in Fairhope, Alabama, Ruby Pearl has become devoted to, even obsessed with, writing. She attends writing classes and conferences, which have proven a huge disappointment. She submits her work relentlessly with no results, either in getting an agent or in having her work published. This volume started out, in fact, as a series of five blogs, to get her work out to the reading public. The present book purports to be a bona fide manuscript, an inspirational memoir, to be submitted to a bona fide publisher.
The second area in which Ruby Pearl wishes to again become active, extremely active, is her own sexuality. Part of the message of this comic novel is the powerful refusal of Ms. Saffire to give up her sexuality. She refuses, and she exhorts her older, female readers not to give up either.
There are places in this risqu? novel in which Ruby Pearl is rather explicit in describing her previous sexual experiences, triumphs and disappointments, especially with husbands, and in giving advice on how to please men and keep husbands interested. Not everyone may be comfortable with these sections, Ruby Pearl understands, but she doesn't care. The epigraph at the very beginning reads, "If you are offended by anything in this book then you are in DIRE need of being offended. Trust me. You have one foot in the grave. Let's extricate that sucker!"
Ruby Pearl's book is, typically, the story of her life: school, work, friends. It has been a long strange trip. A wild sixties girl, Ruby Pearl married four times, with varying degrees of success, the worst being to an Alabama politician who was a lousy husband in every respect, while at home and when away.
Ruby Pearl preaches women's liberation. Her own, she feels, was sped up by her hysterectomy, to which she has penned an ode. One stanza of this poem is as follows:
You used to think hormonal law
Was bound to rule your life,
But once you chunk that uterus
There'll be no menstrual strife.
Ruby Pearl has also taken up the wearing of thongs (although she realizes this is not for everyone) and celebrated this in verse:
If your glutes are round and firm and bronzed and well defined,
It might be cool to place a thong upon your fine behind;
But rampant cellulite and age can shrivel up a butt?
To put a thong on flaccid flesh, you'd have to be a Slut.
The poem goes on. I won't.
Second Sluthood is a self-help manifesto as well as a comedy. Ruby Pearl includes in this text 27 "tenants" to live by. These are her life's hard-won wisdoms and they're not bad. She advises folks not to have children thoughtlessly, and if they have them, don't brainwash or otherwise cripple the children. "Thou shalt cut other people slack" is number 8. But "Not in all cases" is number 9. Ruby Pearl is against plastic surgery and fad diets, and for honesty, flirty banter and clothes that fit comfortably.
Most therapeutically, however, she advocates self-forgiveness and a conscious creation of the self: Don't go to find yourself. Make yourself the self you want to be.
And most important, at least to her: "Thou shalt enjoy sex until the undertaker arrives."
This review was originally broadcast on Alabama Public Radio on July 19, 2010. Don Noble's book reviews can be heard each Monday on Alabama Public Radio at 7:35 a.m. and 4:44 p.m.
Recently retired as an English professor at The University of Alabama, Don's specialties are Southern and American literature. Don also hosts Bookmark on Alabama Public Television. Don's latest book is A State of Laughter: Comic Fiction from Alabama.
