There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell

I have said before that I've picked up a book simply because of the title, and that was the case with Laurie Notaro's There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell: A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble. How could you not be interested with a title like that? Well, it turns out that the book lives up to its crazy title. Charlie and Maye Roberts move from Phoenix to Spaulding, a small town in Washington, when Charlie gets a job as a professor at the local university. Maye is thirty-something, with no children and no job, and finds that it is not easy to make new friends. Her attempts at meeting people end in disaster. When her realtor tells her that winning the Sewer Pipe Queen pageant will surely win her many friends, Maye is determined to win the crown. All pageant entries must be sponsored by a previous Queen, and when Maye's sponsor is eaten by a raccoon, she is determined to find the most famous Queen, who seems to have disappeared, to help her win the pageant. Crazy adventures ensue.

The story starts out somewhat slow, and Notaro goes a little overboard with the similes ("new businesses popped up all over town like pimples on the forehead of puberty"). But Spaulding is a charming town, full of quirky residents, and Maye's attempts at making friends is quite funny. At then end, I found myself thinking this would make a good series. I would like to go back to Spaulding and spend more time with these characters.