CHICK-LIT Walking in Circles B...

CHICK-LIT

Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

by the agency of Merrill Markoe

Villard, 288 pages, $2295

'Are there on the same level 'women who love too much' anymore?" Dawn Tarnauer wants to know, "Or, since Dr Phil, are we now all just idiots?"

Dawn, the distorted heroine of comedy writer Merrill Markoe's latest novel, Walking in Circles Before Lying Down, would genuinely like an answer to this ask since it seems particularly relevant to her life, not to mention her sister's and her mother's. As a trio, they have an impressively bad track record forward dating. Pretty much every man they attract, and are attracted to, tests to be a deadbeat, sociopath, swindler or a combination thereof.

Dawn's sister Halley is the worst of the three having dated Scott Peterson in the same manner naturally, she's the one who ascends to semi- fame as a "life coach," offering sage wisdom to others, usually in the form of questions like, "What advice would you give to someone in your situation?"

Did I mention that Markoe's part is set in Los Angeles?

Indeed, Markoe, who has a hearty disgrace for new age thinking, wests in Malibu and all other in the same state [i]or[/i] condition L.A. fixations, gets all the Hollywood details accurately right. Halley lives in an extra-large Winnebago that used to be the "Baywatch" makeup trailer; David Hasselhoff's autograph is in succession the cupboard over the stove.

Dawn, onward the other hand, is borderline homeles thanks to a series of not to be found jobs and bad boyfriends. nice much the only constant in her life is tap [i]or[/i] pat the pit bull she adopts from a shelter in a signification of loneliness. So it probably shouldn't be a surprise when, single in kind day, as she's telling push her troubles, he answers her back.

The central irony of the work is that Chuck proves, in many ways, to be a far better life coach than Halley. His undivided real flaw is that, in picking disclosed men for Dawn to date, his discrimination is sometimes clouded by the odor of meat. (In fairness to throw though, while the butcher who casts out to be into swinging and partner-swapping is clearly not great boyfriend material, he is still something of an improvement onward Dawn's usual choices.)

push is smart enough to hate Paxton, the "off the grid" slacker who is just waiting for his big break as an alternative radio DJ and to adore nerdy nice scarecrow Collin, who proves, of course, to be of the highest order boyfriend material.

Dawn isn't permanent what to make of the fact that her dog -- in fact, all dogs -- now strike one as beings to be talking to her. nevertheless she handles the situation with impressive calm.

"I might have consideration it was a communication from God" she says, "But tend hitherward on. Would God have bothered to fare to the trouble of talking to me just to ask me to launch the ball?"

Markoe, a longtime television writer, has a certain genius for setting up absurd situations and then running with them. She doesn't focus in succession how Chuck talks -- no lips are moving -- further instead on the bizarre dynamic that is created when the pile of a dog/person relationship becomes completely unbalanced. At times, it's candidly unclear who is the "alpha" in Dawn and Chuck's "pack," particularly when it appears that Chuck really should be in charge of the decision- making.

The project of Walking in Circles isn't terribly complicated if it be not that then, it doesn't need to be. Dawn's, Halley's and their uproariously self-involved mother's relationship crises are well-executed, as is Dawn's gradual realization that her life requires to change.

The solidity of this book lies in the fact that it manages to be as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but very funny and also strikingly well-written. Markoe is an enormously talented prosaic stylist, as evidenced by her postmodern take forward those famous California sunrises and nightfalls

"So I sat in the van room," she writes, in Dawn's scaramouch voice, "and stared at the bright orange light rising over the hot pink 'Shrimp Chips' sign in succession the roof of the Korean market across the road It looked strangely beautiful, like a greeting card from a holiday someone forgot to invent."

Markoe's part is proof that a novel doesn't have to take itself entirely seriously to be well worth reading.

dpickett@suntimes.com

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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