Although characters in the 378-page “Trailer Park Rules” by Michelle Teheux face various crises, the Loire Mobile Home Park isn’t exactly “Dysfunction Junction.” Seven of the eight people here are ordinary folks coping with common hurdles in the human race.
MICHELL TEHEAUX
Regular working-class Americans, they defy flawed stereotypes without drifting into fantasyland. The obstacles are familiar, from unplanned pregnancies (in and out of marriage) to navigating inadequate help from food stamps, Medicaid, etc., and corporate consolidations affecting small-town drug stores, local newspapers and, yes, even trailer parks.
The people
Jonesy is a struggling newspaperman dealing with hedge-fund bean-counters and dabbling at writing fiction;
‘Trailer Park Rules’ by Michelle Teheux has a pleasantly unpredictable plot that is a lively read: sometimes silly, sad or surprising, and always engaging.
Angel is a single mom with a TV-addicted adolescent, responding to a failed relationship by turning to a narrow-minded version of faith;
The African-American Jackson family has twins and embittering circumstances, having exhausted college aid and struggling to pay student debt and child care while working at a factory with lousy health insurance;
Darren is an ex-rocker now unable to work, much less play, with a bad back requiring pain-killers;
Kaitlin is a good-hearted but manipulative former stripper who works at a convenience store as a cover for now being a “kept woman” thanks to a local businessman;
Not a trailer-park resident, her “sugar daddy” Nathan is an arrogant/ignorant and oversexed company exec who takes Kaitlin for granted;
Shirley is a senior widow whose pharmacist husband died almost broke, left wondering how a comfortable wife and mom can retain bits of her middle-class lifestyle in her situation;
Nancy is their manager: exploitative, vindictive and judgmental, a conceited and clueless gossip who sees herself as dedicated to justify her crappy job, then as a martyr to economic factors beyond her ken, despairing in desperation to try telemarketing to avoid homelessness.
Told through an omniscient narrator, the book is structured with brief chapters, each focusing on one tenant, their pasts and presents, with changing challenges.
Besides realistic yet colorful characters who could be neighbors, friends or family, the novel’s storyline is first-rate. The pleasantly unpredictable plot is a lively read: sometimes silly, sad or surprising, and always engaging.
A skilled wordsmith, Teheux is a longtime writer who’s busy online, a former reporter and editor at the Pekin Daily Times and author of previous titles released under pseudonyms. This is her first book she credits herself.
Some memorable lines leap out:
- “That was the way of it everywhere, wasn’t it?” Jonesy thinks, later drinking whiskey and cola and adding. “Every sip tasted of disappointment.”
- Kaitlin summarizes her woes as a “trifecta: an IOU, an IUD and a DUI.”
- “Believing you’re the master of your own fate is validating for the wealthy but demoralizing for the poor.”
“Trailer Park Rules” is available as a paperback online and at Barnes & Noble, and an eBook came out in recent weeks. Teheux will be signing copies of her novel at Peoria’s Barnes & Noble from 2- 4 p.m. Sunday, July 14.