cover image Fancy White Trash

Fancy White Trash

Marjetta Geerling, . . Viking, $16.99 (257pp) ISBN 978-0-670-01082-0

When a family fight breaks out in the front yard, Abby Savage is next door with a friend who can't avert his gaze. “He has that look in his eyes that explains exactly why Jerry Springer has been on the air for so long,” Abby says, with a wry detachment that characterizes her determination to break the Savage family pattern. Her mother is pregnant, (probably) by Steve the Guitar Player, who has also dated Abby's sisters, one of whom is also pregnant, also possibly by Steve. Abby's refuge is best friend and neighbor Cody, a gay teen in denial. She is trying mightily to not fall in love with Jackson, Cody's older brother, the other possible father of her sister's baby. A big soap opera fan, Abby views her life comically through a lens that includes amnesia, babies switched at birth and True Love. The humor bubbles consistently; note that the unsavory adults, underage drinking and harassment of gays (Cody is pelted with “butt plugs” at the homecoming dance) push this first novel to an older readership. Ages 12–up. (May)