12+)Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. The family rises to the challenge, however, and Parr learns that he too is free to make choices. Parr is afraid he will have to stay on the farm when Evie and Patsy move together to New York City. Parr's father, an unsophisticated man, is confused by Evie's affair and fearful of losing his bank loan. Tough, rough, and aggressively unfeminine, she is the bane of her pretty little mother's life and a joy to her gruff farmer father-until she begins an affair with the daughter of the town banker, Patsy Duff, who is home from boarding school for Halloween weekend. 18-year-old Evie, however, seems perfectly content on their parents' farm. Parr Burrman, who narrates, doesn't want to be a farmer he wants to go to college, perhaps move to a city.

This is a complex and benevolent look at how choices affect a family and community. (Oct.Kerr (Linger, 1993, etc.), who also writes as Mary James (see Frankenlouse, above) tells the story of a 15- year-old Missouri farm boy and his lesbian older sister. The small-minded and the conformists tend to get lumped together here, but Kerr's exploration of different drummers is, as always, subtle and thought-provoking. Kerr pulls off a fairy-tale resolution to the girls' relationship by adroitly balancing against it a natural disaster and Parr's own bittersweet romance. A drunken attempt by Parr and Cord to expose the girls' relationship backfires and causes Evie to run away to New York. Burrman tries to set Evie up with a smitten hired hand named Cord, and exhorts her to ``fix herself up'' and wear more feminine clothing.

Suddenly Evie's listening to ``women's music,'' taking off on the weekends for ``lunch'' with Patsy, and wearing the expensive man-tailored clothing Patsy has given her.

However, Evie's interests begin to change after she meets Patsy, daughter of the town's leading citizen, at home only for a rare break between boarding school and summer camp. Narrator Parr Burrman, a high school junior, is thankful that his mannish sister Evie, 18, is an enthusiastic farmer, for he has little desire to join the family business. Kerr (Linger the Fell books) skillfully evokes the gritty realities and narrow horizons of farm life in this sensitive portrayal of the lesbian daughter of a rural Missouri family.

Deliver Us from Evie by M.E. Kerr