What You Need

June M. Blurton is a retired speech pathologist.

This author obviously does not believe that a love story needs to follow
a formula. Man must meet woman, but Clark’s man and woman are not
ordinary—nor are the adventures they attract.

Doreen has three simple ambitions in life, but these have to be put on
hold because she thinks she has murdered her obnoxious boyfriend. She
desperately needs somewhere to hide, and where could be better than the
apartment of a total stranger? Who could turn away a woman disguised as
a singing strip-o-gram? Certainly not Buddy, much as he values his
privacy.

Buddy and Doreen are the central characters, but they are not the only
oddities. There are the Hair Pins, a bowling team made up of women
hairdressers who believe a perfect hairdo is their strongest weapon.
There is a hotel maid who is crazy about parrots; and there is the
parrot who needs to be rocked faster than its own heartbeat when it is
upset. To say nothing of the bear.

Things happen, things that could happen in everyday life but seldom do.
It is not often that a man is given a professional haircut and pedicure
in a laundromat. And not many women wear battery-operated Godzilla
slippers.

Eliza Clark is a Canadian writer, and this is her second novel. It is a
delight to read, mainly because Clark understands people and their
motivations. For all their zaniness, her characters are
three-dimensional people who talk and act realistically. They and the
situations they get themselves into are funny enough to make one laugh,
but there is an underlay of sadness, which is the mark of a good comedy.