The Cotton Queen

By Pamela Morsi

Babs and Laney are mother and daughter. Both lost their fathers when they were little. Both took part in their hometown's Cotton Queen contest with Babs winning runner-up and Laney winning Cotton Queen. Both rode in the cotton festival parade. Both had troubled marriages that ended in divorce. Both gave birth to a daughter who went on to be Cotton Queen in her turn. Both left their hometown only to end up moving back to start over. So in many ways they are a lot alike. Which aggravates Laney to no end, since she sees herself as totally different from her mother, Babs.
Babs wanted nothing more than to be a good wife and mother. Soon after Laney was born, Babs lost her husband to a tragic accident. Trying to raise her daughter on her own, she moved to Dallas and found a job. But while there she was attacked by a man and so traumatized by this that she lost her job and found herself pregnant by her attacker. Desperate, she turned for help to a friend from high school who was now a successful attorney in their home town. He had always liked her and when he asked her to marry him she agreed even though she didn't love him. Theirs was not a good marriage, she was so affected by the rape that she could no longer enjoy sex and so their sex life was terrible. Still, she tried to make up for it by being what she thought was the perfect wife, cooking, cleaning, decorating, dressing well, hosting parties designed to promote her husband's career. Too bad that wasn't what he wanted in a wife.
Meanwhile, her daughter Laney is seeing all this and deciding that the last thing she wants to be is like her mother. Not for her the life domestic, she wants a career. She doesn't care about the Cotton Queen contest but enters it to keep Babs happy. Once she graduates, she can't leave home fast enough. She moves in with a guy and they eventually marry, but the guy is a creep and Laney ends up pregnant and living at home with her mother, who, to Laney's chagrin, has landed on her feet and has developed a career of her own as an events planner. Now Laney is the one stuck at home doing the mommmy thing while Babs is out conquering the world. This is just not the way it was supposed to be!

I really enjoyed this book, it grabbed me and held me right away. Babs' trials and her efforts to keep her daughter were really touching. And Laney's rebellion was so familiar to me as it probably is to most daughters who seem to see only their mothers' flaws and not their strengths. However, as Babs settles into her new marriage, I thought the portrayal of her was a bit over the top, as she manages to alienate not only her husband but also her daughter without ever having a clue as to how controlling and rigid she is. But she warms up later in the story and becomes more human after she becomes involved with the Rape Crisis group and starts to get a handle on her stifled feelings about her own rape. Altogether, it was a terrific story.