Lives in Motion
A Body at Rest by Susan Petrone is a fantasy novel for anyone who has ever wished to change places with a fictional character from their favorite book — and a dark illustration of the warning “be careful what you wish for.” The novel is clever, probing, revealing, funny, moving, and utterly honest in its portrayal of the universal wish for change in life — and the consequences of having it occur.
Martha is a well-educated but under-employed woman in her twenties with the desire to make a big change in her life and get on to the next stage. She wants to get away from working as a cocktail waitress, worrying about money, and relying on hook-ups for relationships. When her sexy roommate Nina, seemingly addicted to affairs with married men and happily resigned to ogling from the rest of the male population, also expresses a desire for change, the two quit their jobs and head out on a road trip. What happens in a corn field in Iowa is even more strange than in the W.P. Kinsella novel or the movie made from it (great line from Martha when Nina explains she has only seen the movie: “Spoken like a true American”). Literary references start piling up (the town they stop in for breakfast is called “Agria”, Nina has suggestions for the Victoria’s Secret Emily Dickinson collection, a discussion of Ben Hecht versus Ernest Hemingway serves as foreplay) and the action really gets going.
When tattoos based on literary figures start disappearing, new personalities and bodies start appearing, and Virginia Woolf’s advice becomes manifest, readers will realize that A Body at Rest is anything but restful. The story of Martha and Nina, and the literary characters they love, is a the story of what happens when fantasy takes over reality, when wishes come true, and when all of a sudden, the costs of growing up become all too real.
A Body at Rest is a great book for all lovers of books, for anyone who has lost themselves along the byways and highways of life, and for anyone willing to take the sad endings along with the happy.
