Lisa Maria's Guide for the Perplexed

Reviewed by Bonnie MacAllister of Small Spiral NotebookRed Dress Ink has offered a surprisingly witty and literary work in Hubbard's take on the life of a struggling writer forced to move back home and to take on clients as a professional housecleaner. Protagonist Lisa Marie supplements her household toil by writing an anonymous advice column for the New Sparta Other. Both manual tasks reveal a paper trail which leads to discovering unsigned semi-pornographic letters, political corruption, gender-bending expeditions to Florida, and cross-dressing novelists who enact English royalty. The novel is sprinkled with literary references to the classics and books of etiquette: she samples from Samuel Beckett and Marjoris Hillis' 1930s feminist treatises, citing "The woman always pays in a thousand little shabbinesses." Hubbard's prose has a resilient quality, lucidly depicting a vivid heroine who is a bit Nancy Drew and a bit Margery Kempe. Not unlike the other fare from Red Dress Ink, Lisa Marie's Guide for the Perplexed contains elements the romance of the chick lit pervading our booksellers; however, in her attention to detail, Hubbard weaves a modern love story pickled in sarcasm, marinated in disillusion, and expelled from a vacuum of dissolution. Her story culminates in an Atlantis-like scene, a denouement of destruction in Anytown, Middle America: "The carousel that was one of the mall's icons that had been bisected by two metal poles which formerly supported a banner Shop Till You Drop. Two carousel ponies had been thrown through the window of the nearby By Gum It's Monday restaurant, and the air was thick with the odor of burned French fries and frankfurters." Hubbard's work fuses the mundane of daily life with the sinister secrets which lurk beneath the bound guise of business attire.

(Author of The Cyber Miracles) Upstate New York residents will have fun exploring Lisa Maria's Guide for the Perplexed's fictional setting, New Sparta, that Hubbard says teasingly "bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Syracuse," where she grew up. SU grads who frequented the environs of Marshall Street will get a kick out of the references to places like Hungry Charley's. This "Chick Lit" book is a delightfully witty, fast-read romp -- perfect for summer. Hubbard displays a knack for creating memorable, unexpected characters in her writing.

I don't quite get the point of some of the other reviews. Lisa Maria is a perfectly proper name, and it's a first name--not a first and middle name. Lisa Maria is a kind of everywoman: every woman who's made romantic mistakes, put up with odd parents, and recovered her self-esteem through her own entrepreneurship. Besides, Lisa Maria is funny, sardonic without being cynical, and gives darned good advice. This is a sweet book in an unsweet world.

Do you? If so, I imagine you will enjoy this book quite a bit. It made me laugh out loud more than once. More than five times actually. It is a book about family values (weird but good ones!), about relationships (yup, weird and good!), and about appreciating life and having energy. I appreciate life, I have a lot of energy, and I enjoyed this book.

Nearing thirty, Lisa Marie Marino lost her advertising job in New York City so she came home to find work in New Sparta, New York. Besides writing an advice column, Lisa finds work as a household assistant. She cleans as little as possible and bosses her clients around until she meets Bob.Client writer Bob McAllister finds Lisa intelligent, pretty, and domineering. Still he enjoys her help when he needs a special word or phrase. Lisa finds herself attracted to Bob and actually uses elbow grease to keep his home spotless. Though her mom tosses her high school boyfriend at her, Bob and Lisa fall in love, but he panics and begins seeing Charlene "the Cosmopolitan" centerfold. Lisa stops cleaning for him, sending her sister instead, but Bob knows he made a mistake as he misses his Lisa and will do anything to get her to be his beloved forever cleaning lady.This is a fun contemporary romance totally carried off by the charming con artist slacker. The rest of the cast is there to add depth to Lisa Marie and thus are not fully developed except in relation to the key protagonist. Still Lisa Marie carries the show as she is fun to follow whether she uses a deodorized spray to make the room seem like it is clean when mostly she watches TV, raids the refrigerator or when she assists Bob with his work. Fans will delight in the antics of this freeloading fraudulent friendly female.Harriet Klausner