“Blame”
By Michelle Huneven
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Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux $25, 304 pages
To regard the cover image of “Blame” — a broken wine glass — as code for chick-lit would be a mistake. But then this novel is about mistakes — as well as recovery and redemption. At its heart is Patsy Lemoore, a history professor sentenced to jail, for drunken driving, after a fatal car accident. In many ways, this is an old-fashioned book — compelling plot twists with fully realized characters, enhanced by Michelle Huneven’s ability to render life in prison, Alcoholics Anonymous, college faculty and the horse-loving Southern California set with depth and insight. At the heart of this novel is the sense that life is a continuous, and often erratic, course of self-discovery but, like Patsy not without humor and irreverence.