PERFECT FAMILY
by Jerrie Oughton
It’s 1955 in the town of Lily, North Carolina. Unwed teen mothers are shuttled off to far away cities; girls are going crazy over James Dean; and “porch setting” is a viable pastime. The illusion of a perfect family is shattered in the O’Neal household when 15-year-old Welcome falls in love with handsome Nicholas Canton, a Northerner unfamiliar with the Southern lifestyle, and her older sister, Evelyn Sue, runs away to California to find her romantic hero, James Dean. Welcome hurries to lose her virginity to a close friend, Randy Newsome, after attending a square dance with Nicholas, who becomes inebriated and flirts with wild girls. Pregnant at 15, Welcome has no other choice than to be shipped off to her Aunt Lacey and Uncle Mac’s home in Virginia Beach. On the bus ride and in their home, she learns the real meaning of love, giving up the son she’s named Adam to her Aunt and Uncle to raise while she returns to Lily to complete her high school education and attend medical school. The unbending, hard-line values of the ’50s and Southern setting are clearly portrayed in this novel about making poor choices, owning up to the consequences, and having the fortitude to set the record straight. (Fiction. 12-14)