Preston, Caroline. Lucy Crocker 2.0 @Novel

What a delicious treat! A well-written, thoughful novel with insightful characterizations, witty tone, and a compelling plot from Boston local author and former children's librarian Caroline Preston. The author's funny second novel (Jackie by Josie, 1997) features a memorable protagonist, Lucy Crocker, the creator of a bestselling computer game, who finds herself ignored by her family and decides to fight back. Lucy has been lost ever since her recent miscarriage and has little energy to complete a sequel to the popular game, Maiden's Quest, that made her husband Ed's software company so successful.

Meanwhile, their twin sons, 13-year-old Phil and Benjy, have their own computer business and Lucy is concerned about their coach-potato existence. After Ed fires her because she is apathetic and stymied, Lucy catches the twins watching porn on the Internet, and she learns that Ingrid, the company's Gen X and attractive PR director, is giving her husband erotic massages.

After that--the pace really picks up as Lucy drives her protesting twins to Camp Kinahwee in Wisconsin's northern woods for a canoe trip and then heads to her father's cottage on Little Lost Lake. In three main story arcs, Preston wraps Lucy, Ed, and the twins' tales around the beauty of the northern forests and paints sharply-focused characters who survive their moral and physical challenges to become wiser and stronger human beings.

The portraits of the two 13-year-old boys is well-balanced and finely-tuned, ringing true every step of the tale. Even Preston's minor characters are lively and engaging from the nerdy young programmers to the truck drivers and store clerks. Lucy's comfort level with her sexuality works in this novel (rather than seeming out-of-character) because the author fleshes Lucy out with all the physical and emotional details that shape her choices from the beginning.

This is a contemporary fictional pleasure for this summer and any season.

Leane M. Ellis, August 5, 2000.