Miss Undine's Living Room

Tula Springs

by James Wilcox

Narrates the often comical events in Tula Springs surrounding the suspicious death of a male nurse caring for Uncle L.D., a bedridden octogenarian

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Southern

288 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1987

About the author

James Wilcox (b. 1949 in Hammond, Louisiana) is an American novelist and a professor at LSU in Baton Rouge.

Wilcox is the author of eight comic novels set in, or featuring characters from, the fictional town of Tula Springs, Louisiana. Wilcox's first book Modern Baptists (1983) remains his best known work. His other novels are North Gladiola (1985), Miss Undine's Living Room (1987), Sort of Rich (1989), Polite Sex (1991), Guest of a Sinner (1993), Plain and Normal (1998), Heavenly Days (2003), and Hunk City (2007). Wilcox is also the author of three short stories that were published in The New Yorker between 1981 and 1986, three of only four short stories that the author has published. He has written book reviews for The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and two pieces for ELLE. He was the subject of an article by James B. Stewart in The New Yorker's 1994 summer fiction issue; entitled "Moby Dick in Manhattan", it detailed his struggle to survive as a writer devoted purely to literary fiction.

Wilcox, a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986, has held the Robert Penn Warren Professorship at Louisiana State University since September 2004. He is also the director of the university's creative writing program.

Reviews

[🐴 🍖]

out of the wilcoxes i've read i would say this was less pure fun than mod baps or north gladiola but prob the most accomplished novel of the three. the plot for starters is hella intricate, hinging on a murder that may not be a murder and its effect on a love triangle that's more of a love trapezoid as well as municipal politics, plus some threads involving ethics in dentistry and mormonism for good measure. on top of that, peep the doubling effect where pairs of characters (olive x carol, mrs undine x uncle ld, donna lee x kay, etc etc) appear as subtly distorted versions of one another. the whole thing called to mind christina stead a bit, esp the characterization of olive (a total force of nature and virtuoso of self-delusion) and the air of mystery right at the tail end. if you're wondering if this is yet another roundabout way of saying "read james wilcox," you'd be right

[Julie Cunningham · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love books about the South, so I thought this would be a big favorite. . But I found there were some problems getting into the characters. I liked some of them, but some of them, I couldn't remember who they were. I was able to finish the book, but it wasn't always easy. I would've liked it better if there had been two or three characters removed and the remaining ones fleshed out a bit more.

[Ella Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a hard book to get into, and it was not one of my favorites I feel like there’s a lot of nonsense in the book.

[Steph · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't think too much of this book. It confused me with all its characters and their relationships.