Rich Housewives of Longview
A Likeable Woman
by May Cobb
New York: Berkley, 2023.
381 pp. $27 Hardcover.
Reviewed by
Jim Sanderson
In her fourth novel, A Likeable Woman, May Cobb seems to want to satisfy her readers’ expectations and several genres’ forms. In A Likeable Woman, a daughter investigates what might be her mother’s murder instead of her suicide in Longview, Texas, which seems to be inhabited with lesser rich cousins of the filthy rich in Dallas or Houston. So A Likeable Woman is a romance murder mystery with some tongue-in-cheek satire thrown in.
Cobb’s plot satisfies the mystery expectations. A first-person prologue starts the novel with an ominous figure watching someone unaware of danger. But though that prologue contributes to mystery’s surprise at the conclusion, that first-person narration doesn’t connect with the following first-person narratives, which are the meat of the novel. In the first chapter, protagonist Kira reads an invitation from an old friend to attend a swank marriage vow-renewal party in Longview, Texas. Kira, in Southern California, reveals she ran away from Longview twenty-four years ago when her mother, Sadie, committed suicide. But, unlike the rest of Longview, Kira believes that Sadie was murdered. Also, she couldn’t exist with any of the Longview Country Club set, except for her young crush, Jack. At first repulsed at the idea of seeing these people again, Kira gets text messages from Jack and decides to return to find the real reason of her mother’s death and maybe to sneak in a renewal with Jack, who happens to be a married doctor with an autistic child. However, as soon as she gets to Longview, Kira gets vile threats from texts, graffiti, and letters. Her life may be in danger, just like her mother’s.
Thus Cobb sets up her “who done it” and promises some steam from early middle-aged, small town, wealthy people. But then, mixed with Kira’s chapters, we get first person chapters from Sadie ruminating about her life. Late in the night before the vow renewal day-of-conspicuous-consumption-on-a-budget starts, Kira’s grandmother secretly gives Kira Sadie’s own typed story, which, as it turns out, is an address to fourteen-year-old Kira to be given to her when she is grown. So this self-reflection and advice is what we have been reading. It ends shortly before Sadie dies.
That ostentatious vow renewal day of drinking, spas, pedicures, gossip, old feuds, and petty cattiness take up most of the novel. Kira goes from character to character recalling, verbally dueling, sometimes fighting, sometimes threatened, sometimes threatening, crying a little, and shivering from a norther. And amidst the “fun” with her former friends, Kira races to read her mother’s memoir. The party pushes the mystery and the romance, and the novel zips right along.
Toward the end of the novel, we get dueling romance for Sadie and Kira. Sadie describes a first tryst: “Our bodies became one—arching, writhing, heaving against each other—until I heard my name being shouted from his lips.” And Kira describes another: “I’ve never been touched like this, so hot, so sensual, so intensely perfect that it feels as though I’m leaving my body.” However, getting back to mystery and murder, neither of those trysts turn out particularly well for mother or daughter.
I guessed pretty early on who did it, how it would end, and who would come to the rescue. But what I most enjoyed was Cobb’s portrayal of Longview “society” during that long day. Everyone is catty and bitchy, even some of the men. The women add a southern sophistication to their remarks and sneers while the men slouch almost gape-jawed with their Texas masculinity. Jack is an early middle-aged pinup with plenty of his own crosses to bear. On her return home, Kira guides us into the delicious but disgusting delight at seeing how her teenage friends, relatives, and acquaintances have followed through on their own self-determined characters. And Kira shows us her desire to amputate her past with these people yet reveals her inability to reject where she came from. And in her descriptions, Cobb gives us some satiric twinkle: “She looks resplendent, and as she dips, it’s by some miracle of gravity and boob tape that her breasts don’t crest over the top of her green satin dress.” That same twinkle is in Kira’s unique descriptions of emotions coursing through her body: “Katie’s earlier possible diss of me is still crawling over my skin like a sunburn.” Given the emotional stress, Kira’s body takes a lot of punishment.
So A Likeable Woman is a seductive murder mystery/thriller/social commentary told through parallel commentary from mother and daughter in paired narrative conceits. That’s a tall order. And with her language and quick takes on character, Cobb must have had a good time writing the novel. Fans and new readers should have a good time reading it.
Jim Sanderson has published eight novels, and Brash Books has republished three and then combined all three in a digital edition. Additionally, he has published three short story collections, an essay collection, two textbooks, and about eighty articles, stories, or essays. For a living he teaches and served as chair for the English and Modern Languages Department at Lamar University. Lamar University recently appointed him as Writer-in-Residence.