cover image Backyard

Backyard

Norman Draper. Kensington, $15 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-61773-305-5

In Draper’s harvest of darkly hilarious mishaps, obsessive garden enthusiasts who rally for botanical superiority plant seeds of deception. The green thumbs of ineffectual gardener Marta Poppendauber, domineering plant expert Dr. Phyllis Sproot, and odd couple George and Nan Fremont twitch over “Burdick’s Best Yard Contest,” spurring a cutthroat competition in the sleepy Midwestern town of Livia. Phyllis blackmails childish Marta into infiltrating the Fremonts’ Eden, for which they have forsaken even their children. As competition squashes decency, marriages and innocent tulips alike are threatened. Are these gardeners suffering from the spells of Edith Merton, the dread Garden Witch, or are the Fremonts’ hallucinogenic Angel’s Trumpets to blame? Metaphors abound in a clever fable that never takes itself too seriously. Characters’ personalities are reflected by their botanical creations. The Fremonts’ elegant paradise resonates with overindulgence, Marta’s haphazard garden shares her disorganization, and Phyllis’s blooms wilt beneath rigidity. Readers looking for a quick, witty read will enjoy the thorns in this prickly arrangement. (Dec.)