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Review by Alice Cary
Lorna Landvik specializes in creating unique fictional havens. First came "Patty Jane's House of Curl," where Minnesotan sisters Patty Jane and Harriet not only cut hair, but offer live harp music and Norwegian pastries. Now there's "Your Oasis on Flame Lake," a basement night club opened by car and appliance salesman Dick Lindstrom, a cabaret singer wannabe who croons such parodies as "I Only Have Buys for You."
What sort of sanctuary does Landvik herself seek out? At first she says no place, really, except perhaps home -- she isn't a "beauty shop person." Then she adds, "I've been in a lot of book clubs and have found that they are havens for women who get together every month and eat and talk. Book clubs are sort of the beauty parlors of the '90s."
Given her soft-spoken, Midwestern twang and her love of homey hideaways, one might at first be surprised to learn that this Minneapolis native has had some downright bizarre adventures.
From the start, young Lorna wanted to be a movie star and a writer, and many of her exploits sound as though they came straight from a novel. She worked as a chamber maid and English tutor in Bavaria, was hired as a temporary employee at the Playboy Mansion, scouted bands for a while, and did standup and improvisational comedy in California, along with the likes of then-rising star Robin Williams.
She writes in much the same way, beginning with vivid senses of character and place, but few ideas about plot. "Your Oasis at Flame Lake," began years ago as a short story, rejected by "The Atlantic" by an editor who said the writing was spectacular but he could make neither heads nor tails out of the storyline. Landvik says it "was as if I had written the preview, and set it aside, never thinking that these characters wanted to get out. But they came back and said, 'We want a bigger story.'"
And get it they did, especially young Franny, the only female on and the star of her high school hockey team. Meanwhile, Franny's mother, Bidi, and her best friend, Devera are being thrown by their own patches of rough ice. With Devera contemplating an affair with a history professor, the two friends have reached a middle-aged turning point, having both been voted "Least Changed" at their 20th high school reunion.
"Being a wife and mother," Devera muses, " . . . is the main entree on life's plate, but I'm starting to think I missed out on some of the more exotic side dishes. Where's the hot pepper relish? The garlic pilaf? Can I get a helping of that mango aspic, please?" Landvik's own domestic routine includes roles as wife and mother to five-year-old and 12-year-old daughters. Before settling in, a cross-country trek convinced her to forego Hollywood and concentrate on writing. In 1986 she, her husband, and their firstborn, infant daughter were among 450 who completed a walk from the West Coast to Washington as part of the Great Peace March for Global Disarmament.
"I think the march made me realize that being a movie star didn't have an allure anymore," Landvik says, "that what I wanted to do was write. I love L.A., but after the march, we came back to Minnesota. That really changed my life, and I'm the kind of person who never thinks anything changes in my life, that I'm on an even keel."
Landvik may be a born-and-bred Midwesterner, but others want to claim her as well. At a reading in Knoxville, one woman in the audience proclaimed her writing "Southern."
"I had to laugh." Landvik recalls. "I appreciate what she was saying. I guess there isn't a specific idea of what defines a Midwestern novel. But I think it's funny that there are these people stuck up in 30-degree-below temperatures and this woman still thought it was a Southern novel."
To this, her characters might resort to shouting the Norwegian all-purpose epithet, "Uff-da-mayda!"
Which means, roughly, "Good gravy!"
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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