One True Story of the World by Lynne McFall

Publishers Weekly

Every night before he left when she was 10, Jesse Walker's father began a different version of ``the one true story of the world ''; she had to supply the endings. Now 34, with a failed marriage and a string of dead-end jobs and unsuitable lovers, she too has ``a talent for leaving'' and an inability to find the right ending for her life's story. Narrated in Jesse's wry, bravado-filled voice, this novel is a stunning debut. Jesse's long road home, punctuated by a guilt-ridden affair with a college professor in New Hampshire and a love idyll with a pig farmer in Iowa, takes her on a downhill slide into pain and humiliation before she can come to terms with her father's disappearance--the circumstances of which turn out to be different from what the reader has been led to believe. If at first Jesse seems a little too flaky and reckless to be sympathetic, the reasons for her behavior gradually unfold, her cynical wisecracks revealed as shields against vulnerability. In compressed, kinetic prose, counterpointed by an elegiac strain, McFall ends her short chapters with piercing observations, framed with such grace they go straight to the heart, as will the quirky heroine we meet in these pages. (June)

Library Journal

This promising first novel traces the quest for meaning in life undertaken at 34 by its strong narrator, Jesse Walker. Haunted by the memory of ``the one true story of the world,'' a bedtime story told by her father, who later deserts her, she decides to give her own ending to the story. Moving west to California, she faces physical and emotional obstacles. A serious automobile accident and seeming refuge with a man called Lucky delay her. The novel abounds with philosophical and literary allusions. Characterization and metaphor are impressively handled. Less effective is the flow of the narrative, which at times seems disjointed. This work will appeal to readers who like introspective novels and don't mind a story line with minimal action.-- Elizabeth Guiney Sandvick, North Hennepin Community Coll., Minneapolis

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