Life in The Fire Lane, by Linda Stanley
(Published by MyBooks, Rocky Mount, VA)

Reviewed by Becky Mushko

Linda Stanley's new book gets its title from her approach to motherhood-"roaring in with sirens screaming to put out the fire or respond to false alarms." Judging from the thirty-six previously published essays contained in the book, her life consists of more fires than false alarms. 

Stanley has lived in many places-Franklin County, Floyd, County, and Patrick County-and worked at several jobs, written for several publications, and raised two daughters. Therein lies much of her book's content. Some of the fires in her motherhood experiences include a phone call that begins, "The good news is I'm OK and didn't drown," a daughter lost by the airlines, and a daughter whose first truck-driving job was taking an 18-wheeler to Minnesota during a snowstorm. When daughter Boo began flying an airplane, Stanley says, she made "big plans to attach a king size mattress to the roof of my car and follow her on her first solo flight." Fortunately the solo flight happened before Stanley knew about it.

I know that it isn't polite to laugh at another person's misfortunes, but a lot of Stanley's mishaps are just plain funny-whether she's dealing with a ground squirrel up her skirt , breaking her toes (several times, using a different method each time), losing her checkbook out the car window while fighting off a praying mantis, or catching her nose in a car door. Indeed, a lot of her misfortunes deal with vehicles, many of which she has wrecked. If what she writes is true, this is not a woman you'd want as your designated driver.

Because the author is able to laugh at herself and get her readers to laugh, too, her book qualifies as a good read-food for thought to be enjoyed either in little bites or gobbled up all at once. After reading Life in the Fire Lane, the reader is left with a profound sense of "Thank-goodness-that-hasn't-happened-to-me!