Marshmallow laughs upon a structure of humanity

POSTMODERN irony as the literary stance of the cool, the hip and the in-demand may be dead if first-time novelist Amy Wallen has anything to do with it. “MoonPies and Movie Stars,” her comic, Southern-flavored novel about a woman and the fierce love she carries for her wayward adopted daughter, is anything but ubercool. It features over-the-top characters, a wild plot and hilarious scenes and yet is surprisingly poignant.

Starting out in small-town South Texas in 1976, Wallen introduces us to Ruby Kincaid, a middle-aged widow who’s arranging a wedding reception at her bowling alley to celebrate the on-screen marriage of two soap opera characters. The town’s women will be joining her to toast the TV couple with “Mexican champagne” (lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid mixed with fizzy water and tequila).

The cartoonish book jacket and Wallen’s incisive humor, which is layered in from the get-go, might prepare readers for a sendup in which the author satirizes the provincial minds of the characters, poking fun at their specially ordered red, white and blue patent-leather Bicentennial bowling shoes, their wigs and spandex pants, their small hopes and plebian dreams.

But Wallen has meatier fish to fry.

We quickly learn that Ruby’s adopted daughter, Violet, got married 10 years earlier and gave birth to two children (Bubbie and Bunny) before high-tailing it out of town, and she hasn’t been heard from since. Ruby’s been raising the grandchildren, wondering what happened to Violet and how a woman who’d been abandoned as a child could inflict the same pain on her own kids. Then, right in the middle of the soap opera wedding the town’s women have all gathered to watch, the missing Violet appears on screen as the ButterMaid, who is a nationally recognized milkmaid commercial character.

What follows is a wild trip to Hollywood -- Sin City! -- as Ruby; her man-eating sister, Loralva; Violet’s uptight mother-in-law, Imogene; the dysfunctional Bubbie (he likes to cut up road kill); and the traumatized Bunny (Mrs. Beasley doll in tow) make the trek to California in a Winnebago, hot, they hope, on Violet’s trail.

Along the way, Imogene tells everyone that she’s related to a movie star and Loralva, determined to be on “The Price Is Right” game show, studies the Sears catalog, memorizing the prices of gas-powered mowers and three-speed bicycles while attracting the stares and admiration of men. (Later, driving a “Smokey and the Bandit” Trans Am, Loralva comments, “It drives like I imagine a man would if I had a key to his ignition.” MoonPies -- graham cracker treats stuffed with marshmallow and dipped in chocolate -- go wherever they go, as a bribe for the kids and an incentive for Ruby, ultimately becoming a metaphor for the simple pleasures of small-town Texas life. Violet always loved MoonPies, but they’re hard to come by in Hollywood.

The humor and situations that Wallen mine are clearly exaggerated. But what makes “MoonPies” so appealing is that she doesn’t simply create a farce. She shows us the heart beneath the humor, the compassion and anxiety that underlie the circus. Ruby plays straight man to her compatriots’ antics, adding a degree of sincerity that summons empathy. Funny and engaging, the book is also spirited and honest, willing to take on subjects like mother love and mother loss that in other hands might be too treacly.

Early on, Ruby remembers the day she rescued Violet, her arm wedged in a porch railing. She’d been left behind when her family moved out of town. Although she showered love on Violet throughout her growing-up years, Ruby knows it may not have been enough. “It was her real momma she wanted to have love her. She’d always be missing that.”

Ultimately, the book subtly mines such heavy subjects as childhood trauma and loss, but it’s presented amid such hoopla and laughter that we don’t have time to raise our defenses before Wallen scoots under our rib cage, right where the deepest hurts of the human condition lie. The best humor, after all, has its roots in pain.

“MoonPies and Movie Stars” demonstrates that heartfelt narratives served with a heaping scoop of humor have an important place in contemporary writing. Eschewing detachment and irony, Wallen capably illustrates that it is not only possible but also compelling to be funny, captivating and compassionate, all in the same book.

Bernadette Murphy is the author of “Zen and the Art of Knitting” and co-author of “The Tao Gal’s Guide to Real Estate.”