Meredith Sue Willis turns her considerable talents to explore a new part of the world: the downtrodden New Jersey waterfront undergoing a radical Gold Coast transformation. In LOVE PALACE Willis has created a memorable cast of characters and a pitch perfect sense of place. The tale of a quixotic battle against redevelopment is narrated by an unlikely heroine. Martha Miller is neurotic, over-educated, under-achieving, over-libidoed, and in a tailspin over being left by Rotter number 3, her long-term boyfriend. (Rotter number 1 was her father; Rotter number 2, her ex-husband). Martha suffers from agoraphobia and low self-esteem, but one thing she's good at is attracting men and enjoying sex. A man/boy half her age (twenty-one), devastatingly good-looking, and sexually conflicted picks her up at a bar and takes her home to Love Palace. From then on the novel is a wild rollicking ride.
The cast of characters includes: the young runaways and homeless addicts who inhabit Love Palace; the soon-to-be-evicted tenants including a former Black Panther, who live next door; the charismatic cult leader John whose need to connect with everyone includes having sex; Robby, the man/boy who uses Jesus to fight his homosexual attractions and asks Martha to marry him on their first date; Robbie's wealthy parents whose church supports Love Palace, where the John preaches while seducing Robbie's mother; Martha's communist Jewish grandmother who raised her and is dying in a nursing home; Martha's therapist, Madame Landowska, who insists on payment to continue treatment but comes to Martha's wedding ("I adore weddings," she tells Martha, "They represent hope for the future."); and more. These characters come alive as an incredible range of vivid individuals each with their own flaws and yearnings, seen through the sharp eyes of the empathetic narrator.
It is Martha's ability to sympathize with even the creepiest characters which gives nuance to what is essentially a morality tale: pitting the disenfranchised poor against the steamroller of capitalism. Who is stealing money from Love Palace's bank account? Will Martha and Robbie's unlikely marriage work? Can the little guy ever win? We are propelled through action-packed scenes to an unexpected and satisfying conclusion. If at times the personalities are so large that they verge on caricature, they are redeemed by the deftness of the author's touch.
