Even though Friday Night Lights has been off the air for years, I’m still needled by one particular scene in an otherwise enjoyable show. In it, ice cream sprinkles are referred to as “jimmies”—an abomination that no Texan would ever use.
Texas has always been a subject of fascination—not a year goes by when somebody (usually not from here) manages to make a splash with a book or film or show depicting some version of its masculine mystique. So Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut novel, Valentine, is a revelation not for what it explores but how. Set in the 1970s Odessa oil boom, the book carefully builds complex authenticity throughout: kids drinking Sonic limeades at the end of the Drag, folks listening to Joe Ely and the Flatlanders on the radio. No “jimmies” on the ice cream here.
This novel is made for the #MeToo era. Told from the point of view of the women who usually take a back seat in historical Texas fiction, Valentine gives us what we didn’t know we were missing. Female anger, check. Female vengeance, check. An all-female car chase? Hell yes! There is a narratively important gun named Old Lady, and that is really all you need to know. In this novel, violence is not solely the purview of the men.
