Gretchen Johnson

Single in Southeast Texas Gretchen Johnson

Gretchen Johnson gives a sensitive and humorous account of dating in Southeast Texas. Paige, the heroine of the novel, is a young, recently divorced transplant from Minnesota and a professor of English Literature at Lamar University. She's fascinated by the culture(s) of her adopted state and trying to find a suitable mate. Her "take" on singleness and the dating scene in Beaumont is alternately witty, hopeful, resigned, and philosophical. The dozen men Paige dates are as real as any of J. D. Vance's hillbillies and as individualized as the folks old Studs Terkel used to interview. Her attitude toward Texas is overall optimistic, though she's aware of the racism, sexism, and classism which her students, her would-be lovers, and at times she herself see as simply natural. Johnson has a poet's keen eye and ear, and something of Sarah Silverman's sense of humor.