Watermelon

Claire Webster feels as if she has swallowed a watermelon, and her pregnant belly, in a green jumper, makes her look like one. But the seed in her is a baby girl--good news, except that her husband has just left her. So she clutches newborn Kate and flees from London to Dublin into Mum's loving arms. A new love affair with a man five years her junior looks promising until James tries to worm his way back into her life. Gerri Halligan's light brogue roots the listener in the soil of the Emerald Isle. Alternately funny and sad, her candid voice issues from the innermost Claire, revealing all the emotions in Keyes's first-person tale of the making of an independent woman. E.V. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

June 29, 1998
Claire Webster, heroine of this breezy Irish bestseller, thinks hubby James is the man of her dreams until he ditches her for an older woman (Claire herself is 29) two hours after their daughter is born. Mother and child repair to Dublin, where there's hope of solace and sustenance in the bosom of an eccentric family, while Claire downsizes from watermelon to wisp and struggles over the hurdles of blues and booze. When she attracts a handsome young lover and considers dumping the suddenly repentant James, it's clear a happy ending's in sight. Or is it? There are a few surprises and plenty of sassy girltalk in this slick if sometimes silly take on what it's like to be female. Much of the hilarity generated by Claire's funky family--airhead sisters who squabble over clothes and men, a mother who'd rather watch soap operas than cook, a father perpetually bewildered by the women in his life--wears thin, but readers will identify with Claire's flaws, applaud her irreverent wit and rejoice at her triumphant recovery. Like the fruit it's named for, this overlong novel is short on nutrition but long on refreshment.