The Melting of Molly Is Laugh-Out-Loud Funny

Happily widowed Molly Carter receives a letter from the boyfriend who left her at 17 for a career in the foreign service. He’s coming home.

Molly is 26 years old,  5’3″ tall and 160 pounds. She’s horrified that Al will find her fat.

As she always does, Molly consults Hillsboro’s Dr. John, her widowed next door neighbor and father to little Billy, whom Molly loves as if he were her own.

Dr. John gives Molly a red journal in which he’s written out a reducing regimen that includes diet, exercise, and wrapping herself in hot sheets to melt her fat.

Molly follows the plan, but writes her reactions in the journal. Novelist Maria Thompson Daviess gives the journal to readers to enjoy.

“What I am,” Molly writes, “is just a poor foolish woman, who has a lot more heart than she can manage with the amount of brains she got with it at birth.”

Maria Thompson Daviess is funny. With the able assistance of illustrator R. M. Crosby, she unreels her words like a movie projector, giving The Melting of Molly the feel of a classic 1930s war-between-the-sexes romantic comedy.

Readers get to see Molly melt.

They watch her slide into home while the gorgeous, womanizing Judge Wade peeps over the picket fence.

They tingle at the fireworks that burst every time Molly and Dr. John are in the same room.

And in between scenes, they get Molly herself, confiding to her journal her thoughts on life, love, and the importance of having lots of thin children.

Cast Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in the leading roles and watch the fun on the screen of your imagination.

Images are from the American novel publication of The Melting of Molly. A British magazine publication of the novel is also available from Project Gutenberg.

© 2012 Linda Gorton Aragoni