The Governor's Lady

July 22, 2013
Readers hoping for a savvy look inside the life of a politician will be disappointed by this simplistic tale of the trial by fire of Cooper Lanier, a new Southern (the state remains unnamed) governor; Lanier is both the daughter and wife of prior governors. With her husband Pickett gearing up for a White House run, Lanier has a chance to show what she has to offer the public after a narrow victory. It takes too long to get any handle on what she stands for—Inman, lazily, refers to Lanier’s inaugural address, which she wrote herself, without presenting even a brief excerpt. And it’s hard to be impressed with a chief executive who doesn’t bother to read through her briefing book—a failure that comes back to bite her when she’s handed her first crisis: her state is hit by a crippling snowstorm, but her plan to mobilize the National Guard is vetoed by her husband. Inman (Captain Saturday) doesn’t sweat the details, and the psychodrama between Lanier and her estranged mother, who conveniently dies just as Lanier takes office, is as banal as the rest of the plot.

September 15, 2013

In Inman's latest novel (Dairy Queen Days; Captain Saturday), Cooper Lanier's father and husband have both served as governor. Now, with her husband campaigning for president, she has been elected to her Southern state's highest office. But when a snowstorm cripples the state, Cooper learns that her husband expects her to answer to his political posse and maneuver with his future ambitions in mind. Cooper is determined to make her own decisions and finds that her most unlikely allies are her estranged, ailing mother, Mickey, and a bull-headed journalist named Kinkaid Wheeler. This is Cooper's story; readers learn her personal history through past reflections as she tenaciously works to change the future, for both herself and her state. Having reported for a Montgomery, AL, television station and served as a press secretary for Alabama governor Albert Brewer, Inman was obviously inspired by Lurleen Wallace, who briefly succeeded her husband George in 1967 as Alabama's first--and only--female governor. VERDICT Inman beautifully blends old-fashioned Southern storytelling with tense political drama. Readers with an interest in American politics, fierce women, or family relationships will enjoy this novel, whose strongly developed characters and plot suspense will keep them from putting this book down until the very last page.--Shannon Marie Robinson, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH

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