If You Just Won the Lottery…

What would you do?  This is always a fun question to ponder…as does Perry L. Crandall and his gram, until the lucky day when he actually does win.  Perry is not retarded, as he will surely tell you if you make that mistake, he is “just slow.” Innocent and simple, Perry is ill-prepared to deal with some money-grubbing and unscrupulous siblings who crawl out of the woodwork to “help” him upon hearing the good news.  But Perry’s gram, though passed on, has taught him well about who to trust, and what is the real value of things in life.  This is a sweet book, a first novel by author Patricia Wood, simply titled “Lottery.”  The story is told from the view point of Perry, which could be a real challenge in less-skillful hands, but Wood does a good job describing the world according to a mentally challenged young adult.  The story mostly revolves around Perry’s scheming relatives, in stark juxtaposition with the constellation of quirky characters that surround him and are his true friends: a pill-popping alcoholic Vietnam vet who means well, a pierced and tattooed mini-mart cashier who is being abused by her father, and a marina shop owner, whose family “adopts” Perry.  Author Patricia Wood paints some charming scenes which lay bare the world through the eyes of the truly guileless, but in many instances of the novel, the good characters are just too good and the bad, well, they are really over the top.  The story also drags in the middle, when the overall plot driving the story is whether Perry’s no-good brothers will cheat him out of his lottery winnings.  I also had a hard time pushing myself through the book because I dreaded so much what would befall Perry, and because the author was quite skilled at capturing the downright meanness of some people towards others that are different.  For a warm-hearted, feel good story about what really has value in life, read “Lottery.”