Celebrating Hotchclaw

I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't get it. Shockley has given us too many characters to be involved with and not enough information about the ones that I suspect are supposed to be the central characters. Her writing is much better than it was in Say Jesus and Come to Me, but her plotting is a little scattered. I think that Angela and Michael are the people we are supposed to care about, but "because I could" doesn't give us an explanation of Michael's life-changing action. I really didn't know enough about either of them to care and got too much extraneous information about the faculty and administrative personnel of Hotchclaw College, most of whom I could care less about because they are pretty bankrupt human beings. Perhaps next time Shockley should write a detailed story about a HBC populated by people we can more easily care about. Frankly, I hope the administration of HBC's isn't nearly as incompetent as that of Hotchclaw. Nonetheless, I'm glad she's back.

This is an amazing book by the woman who spoke to so many readers in the 1970's with her groundbreaking novel Loving Her. Hotchclaw is vintage Shockley - politics, gender-bending, quirky characters and same-sex relationships - not to mention a little bit of history along the way. A terrific read.