Book Review : Unmaking of a Homemaker

Snap by Abby Frucht (Ticknor & Fields: $17.95, 339 pages)

“Snap” is at once a paean to magic, to homemaking and to hanging-out--not necessarily in that order: the fine art of homemaking wins here by several lengths. It follows then, that “Snap” is a “women’s book,” and that’s not necessarily meant as a judgmental term. It’s just that what man, home from a hard eight hours at the office, would choose to while away his valuable time reading--before the plot has even fairly started--this description of a wedding cake (whipped up by Ida Mack, “Snap’s” diminutive heroine), being delivered by bicycle on a hot day, destined for a pair of already-twice-married, star-crossed lovers?

“It has two layers, only on the top is a spiral of black-eyed Susans, because the woman’s name is Susan. Ida formed the disk flowers from dark chocolate sprinkles, homemade, and the ray flowers of white royal icing squeezed into narrow irregular petals, on a background of buttercream tinted with a little cocoa. The cake itself is angel food, it’s twin layers separated by a spread of orange marmalade and ground walnuts. Ida hopes the tartness of the citrus will blend smoothly with the frosting, which is bittersweet. All of her wedding frostings are bittersweet unless otherwise requested. . . . At the base of the cake is a circle of rose petals that Ida plucked from Ruby’s garden and has long since sugared and dried. The roses are Betty Prior, their petals uniformed and hard-shaped. . . .”

We get this discussion of the cake and the methodology behind it before we know much at all about the characters in “Snap,” and it is never too clear what these characters are doing in their lives, except hanging out. (Of course, that may be a blessing. The characters in “Snap” just live in St. Louis, and sometimes in Williamsburg, Va. They spend their time taking care of rental properties, or making cakes, or drifting from one front porch to another. They don’t want or need to conquer the world. All they want or need is love.)

The cake-baker here is Ida, about 5 feet tall and 96 pounds. She is married to Ruby, who has a head of dandelion-blond hair; he’s the one who used to manage rental properties. Ruby loves Ida so much that he has become a bore--leaving his wife love letters in fish bowls and vegetable crispers and so on. When Ruby’s mother dies, he must go back to his parental house to see to her belongings. As soon as Ruby does that, Ida drifts away with a boorish, no-talent couple who seemed to have it in their minds to poison her--why, is never really made clear.

Refreshing Change

If I read correctly, Ida goes with this surly pair simply because they don’t like her very much and she finds that refreshing. Meanwhile, across the street from Ruby’s mother’s house, a chubby, sulky, mildly paranoic girl named Linell plots to steal away Ruby’s affections. She too defines herself by cooking.

Ida Mack’s angel cake awhile back, remember, was made for a woman named Susan and her twice-ex-husband, who have, in the course of their stormy romance-marriages, given birth to a lovely female dimwit named Roxy, or Roxanne. This young beauty is temporarily paired with a boy named Sammy, who has stolen Ida’s car (except that no one but the reader makes this connection for the longest time). Sammy has two things on his mind, sex and cars; Roxy, for her part, is fixated on having a home of her own, since the place she shares with the aforementioned Susan is the apotheosis of squalor.

The plot shifts again: Ida is out on some beach being starved by that unpleasant couple. Ruby has loutishly fallen into the conniving Linell’s fleshy arms. Roxanne and Sammy have broken into, and are living in, Ida and Ruby’s pretty home: Roxanne lies in Ida’s bed and takes it all in: “First the peacocks floating on the low, wide bed. In lieu of night tables, wide-mouthed urns glazed with whorls of leafy roses and topped with sheets of smoked glass.” Several times in this book, characters remarked to themselves that “details” are everything, but “Snap,” as a novel, would do better with a few less details and a few more plot lines. Abby Frucht is a very pretty writer, but sometimes, as curtains are removed and rehung, and birdies sing and gravel crunches and nothing much happens, you want to scream at her, hurry up! Leave the peacock bedspread alone and give us more character, more plot! Why, for instance, did Ida run away? Simply because she’s loved? Wouldn’t it be interesting to go into that, instead of recipes and white-washed floors? It’s just a thought.