There are two things about this book that I found immediately noteworthy. The first was that I’m thanked in the acknowledgments. (See? I’m disclosing that right up front, just the way the NPR guys do.) So, kisses going right back at you, Connie!
And the second point is that this is Connie’s first contemporary novel. She’s always written historicals before - set in the misty, romantic past, just like mine. Every once in a while, I imagine actually finding myself in a ballroom in Regency England. As long as I was drop-dead gorgeous, seventeen-years-old, and very thin, I’m sure I’d fit in just fine. In my normal skin… no, I’d rather stay here, thank you very much!
Well, what Connie did was move from those Regency ballrooms to an environment in which I can not only imagine myself: I lived it. For more years that I care to think about.
Hot Dish is set in a Minnesota small town. That speaks volumes to any of you who a) grew up in Minnesota and b) grew up in a small town. Now the town I grew up in had 2,242 people, out somewhere in the plains about three hours from Minneapolis. Lake Wobegon country, except not nearly as cute as it sounds on that show.
It’s lack of cuteness that I want to talk about in this review. If you ask me, a Small Town Veteran, cuteness is where most people go dead wrong in their portrayals of small town America. Connie’s Hot Dish is a brilliant antidote to cuteness. It’s the story of Jenn, who did anything and everything (including entering a contest to become the Queen Buttercup - until a nasty little bit of maneuvering behind the scenes loses her the crown. Poor Jenn with her magnificent prow of bangs (sprayed three times): I remember her! In fact, I believe I may have had a similar prow.
But then years later, she finds herself back home (that’s where Jenn’s and my story part ways). There are so many true and wonderful things in her return to small town hell. One of which is Steve Jaax: Wide shoulders, flat stomach, sinewy, dark rumpled curls. Nice.
But in a book that’s not about cute, the romance isn’t about cute either. This is the real thing: a story about adults thinking about life. About the choices you make when you’re in your thirties and forties - not when you’re a dewy-eyed eighteen.
This is a literary fiction type of novel. But - thank God - it’s not an Oprah novel. It’s my favorite kind of hybrid: a book with a romance and one scene of inspirational wall-pounding intimacy. It’s a book that makes you laugh and then giggle and then get sober really fast. Mostly - it’s a book about choices. And (forgive me for being older), choices are so much more interesting to me now than they were when I was eighteen.
