Believe Me

How curious can a five-year-old really be? Frannie and Calvin are back, and even more baffled, in this hilarious and heartwarming sequel to Patricia Pearson’s critically acclaimed comic novel, **Playing House**.

Frannie Mackenzie thought she finally had her life on track. Even though she backed into love and parenthood — getting pregnant before she even knew how to spell her lover Calvin’s last name

(P-U-D-D-I-E) — the birth of baby Lester seemed to put everything in the right order at last. Ha! When her mother-in-law, Bernice, takes theatrically to her death bed and Calvin can’t deal, Frannie has to step up to the next big challenge: what to make of mortality when you’re pretty sure there’s no afterlife. And Lester, at five, knows just how to test his mother’s verbal and spiritual limits. Spotting a crucifix in a local church, Lester inquires, “What happened to that guy?”

There’s certainly no lack of absolutists in Frannie’s life: an atheist scientist bent on disproving God, a near-death experiencer, a suburban shaman, and the whole neo-con coterie of magazine editors at *The Moral Volcano* who pay her salary. But when it comes down to surveying the landscape of their own beliefs, Frannie and Calvin find that a dying woman and a growing child offer the most lasting lessons on life and faith.

*From the Hardcover edition.*