A darkly comic novel about personal triage in the face of life's odds-the odds of genetics, of finding and keeping love, and of rescue and survival.. Anna Riggs Duffy and her husband, George, live in New Orleans with their two very different identical twins. One day there is a tragic accident, and Anna can save only one of the boys. In their grief, George turns to another woman while Anna turns to the slot machines in the waterfront casinos. How will she win George back, and does she really want to, anyway? In Odds, Patty Friedmann explores the darker sides of humor, love, and family.

N.O. Drugstore is located at the improbable intersection of South Claiborne Avenue and South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. Its idiosyncratic clientele draws as much from mostly poor-black Pigeontown as it does from the mostly rich-white University section. And no one knows this better than the three people who man the pharmacy on even days of the month. As different in style and temperament as their customers, Luciana Jambon, Lennon Israel, and Vendetta Greene are the protagonists of this story. Told in third person from their alternating points of view, "Side Effects plays out their respective family feuds, usually somewhere between the Seasonal Specials and the Depends aisles. Corralled as they are with one another twelve hours a day, romance and splendid friendship blossom among Luciana, Lennon, and Vendetta, because it's really only a low counter that separates them from everyone else.

A zany, disturbing novel set amid the splendors and excesses of New Orleans.. Eleanor Rushing is a first-person narrative tour de force. While Eleanor is blessed with acute powers of observation and the ability to remember everything, her recollections and impressions are nevertheless often at odds with those of the people around her. As her "relationship" with a local married Methodist minister spins out of control, the loquacious and endearing Eleanor manages to charm us completely. Even as we begin to realize that surviving a childhood marred by tragedy has exacted a terrible toll, we can't help being her willing and faithful admirers.