Looking for salvation at the Dairy Queen

by Susan Gregg Gilmore

Now this is my kind of book. Narrated by Catharine Grace, this is a sweet story of a Georgia preacher and his two motherless daughters, in a small town filled with two-named people (Martha Ann, Lena Mae, Emma Sue, Gloria Jean, Ida Belle...) who have just enough meanness and weaknesses mixed in with their goodness to make the story realistic. Catharine Grace has never wanted anything more than getting out of her one-horse town the minute she turned 18, and that's exactly what she did. When she got her own room in Miss Mabie and Flora's house, and a job at the Davison's department store in Atlanta, she felt she was on her way to getting everything she ever wanted. It was harder on her Daddy and her sister than Catharine Grace that she couldn't come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But when the telegram came on Jan. 3 saying that her Daddy had died, she knew she had broken his heart and been the cause of his death.

When Catharine Grace got home for the funeral , she came face to face with enough shocking situations, that she wasn't sure she could ever have loving thoughts of her Daddy again, but after a good talk with Eddie Franklin at the Dairy Queen, she realizes that nobody is perfect in this life, and it seems like she just had to get away from home for awhile to realize there was nowhere else she'd rather be. Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen is a great get-away-from-it-all novel with a funny and touching message.

--reviewed by Dail Sams