Under the Mermaid Angel

September 4, 1995
Thirteen-year-old Jesse Cowan, the narrator of this intermittently witty, often strained first novel, has a point of view that would do one of Bobbie Ann Mason's characters proud. She lives with her parents in a trailer park in Ida, Tex.; paints her toenails Flaming Tomato with her new neighbor and best friend, 30-year-old Roxanne; helps a disfigured but with-it classmate put out a sometimes subversive school newspaper; and hangs out at Mr. Arthur's wax museum (``The main attraction... is the wax replica of the Last Supper. He's only got Jesus and five disciples, though, and they're in pretty bad shape''). As first-novelist Moore barrages the reader with a steady onslaught of consciously quirky details, she unwinds a twisty, imperfectly paced tale. Jesse is haunted by guilt at the relief she felt when a long-languishing infant brother died six years ago, but her feelings begin to heal through her friendship with Roxanne. It emerges that Roxanne has moved to Ida to trace the son she gave up for adoption at birth; the son turns out to be Jesse's nemesis at school. Roxanne persuades Jesse to arrange a meeting, then skips town (``What if I couldn't let go?'' she writes to Jesse months later). There's a little too much glorying in the unconventional, and not enough attention to real-life emotions. Ages 12-up.