cover image Girls Around the House

Girls Around the House

M. A. C. Farrant. Polestar Book Publishers, $15.95 (155pp) ISBN 978-1-896095-93-6

Tart-tongued former hippie Marion narrates these 12 jaunty, interconnected stories of humorous parental angst in Canadian author Farrant's sixth book. Between trying to keep up with their three nearly adult children's junk food and hair gel consumption, tantrums and adolescent antics, neither Marion nor her husband, Gerry, are enjoying the ""independence, wealth and the Open Road"" they'd once imagined for themselves. And Gerry's bridge-playing mother also lives with them, making the couple feel as though they have become ""stage managers for those whose lives are occurring before and after us."" Each story is composed of short passages that read like postmodern Erma Bombeck entries. The titles and themes (such as ""Condom Run,"" wherein Marion makes her monthly trip to stock up on supplies for the kids) underscore the fact that these liberal parents understand the particulars of their beer-drinking, sexually active offspring's lives. Hiding her good underwear and asiago cheese from her scavenging kids, Marion's saving grace is her sense of irony and willingness to take responsibility for her frustrations. Apt literary allusions strengthen the impression that there is a higher consciousness at work (and play) here than the sitcom quality of some of the pieces might suggest. The setting is the author's hometown of Sidney, B.C.--nicknamed Skidney by Marion's kids--characterized as a place where young people at parties hold cases of beer under their arms to keep friends from pilfering them. Farrant manages to skewer this domestic three-ring circus while inscribing the lovable Marion as a devoted fiction writer, wry mother and companionable wife to the equally good-humored Gerry. (Feb.)