Crazy for Trying is a bit of a genre-bending novel: coming of age meets women’s fiction meets feminism meets western romance. I enjoyed it very much.
Tulsa Bitters leaves San Francisco after the death of Andrea Firestein, Tulsa’s 1970s lesbian-feminist-activist mother’s death and the demise of Tulsa’s relationship with an artist. She moves to Montana, an abrupt change from the liberality of California, Paris, New York, and other ritzy places she’s lived. An avid bookworm and a bit of a loner, she’s seemingly a poor fit in the small Montana town. She finds a job at the local radio station and, as the first female, faces hard core misogyny. She lives a meager existence on this minimum-wage job. A nighttime caller into her radio program sparks a return to life, and Tulsa finds a true home.
Crazy for Trying has considerably more depth than the average romance, which I found particularly enchanting. The role of music cannot be understated, and the prose is scattered with lines from country music (Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson) and many folk and rock and rolls music references (Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Janis Ian, the Beatles) and songs (“Wooly Bully”, “Devil with a Blue Dress”, “Uncle Albert”). As Tulsa is a bibliophile, there are also lots of references to poetry and literature (Robert Browning, William Wordsworth). The blend of is intoxicating. The romance is definitely secondary to the coming of age story but with the twist of a May-December type romance. Rodgers displays a deep affinity for the Montana landscape and its inhabitants and for ranch life which, as a Texas girl, I always delight in.
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Crazy for Trying (Westport Lighthouse Books, January 27, 2022) is available through:
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