Egrets to the Flames

Egrets to the Flames, Barbara Anton, 2007, Oceanview Publishing. Genre: Fiction. 301 pages. Finished 6/27/2010.

LesOpinion: I'm about to speak ill of the dead. The author of this crappy novel, Barbara Anton, died in 2007. Have mercy on her soul, dear lord, and forgive me for what I'm about to say.

Anton was a prolific playwright who should have resisted the urge to branch out. She is incapable of writing expository transition between episodes of dialogue, comes from the Reverend Alcorn School of Gratuitous Plot Twists, and has created a shamefully racist portrait of an African American maid reduced to the shuffling stereotypical house mammy (with her "full lips hanging in a pout" and "cower[ing] in the hall, eyes wide, hands trembling"). She even has a Japanese character who says "Ah so." I shit you not.

If I were stuck on a desert island with this book, at least I'd have 301 sheets of toilet paper.