Saga of codependence

From the title, and the cover photo of a stunning woman in a slinky dress, one might think that All I Need to Get By is just another entry in the current wave of chick-lit novels. But Lorain native Sophfronia Scott's debut is a satisfying domestic story, rich with convincing narrative and realistic dialogue.

The plot isn't extraordinary. Midwestern girl Crystal ``Crita'' Carter moves to New York for a career as a CPA. When she learns that her father is very ill, she must return to face her childhood demons; primary among them is her deep-seated denial of her older brother Linc's drug addiction, which she spent most of her adolescence enabling.

Along with the stress of sharing a room with younger sisters Ella and Hazel, Crita is anxious about the inevitable appearance of Tree, her former flame, who has moved home from a teaching job in Akron. She's also concerned about her family's treatment of Linc, who repaid Crita's devotion by getting her involved with violent drug dealers. He now has lost his job, his marriage and his home.

As Crita's mother observes, ``There's people who take care of things, and there are people who have to be taken care of.'' Crita is a natural caretaker -- too much so, it seems, as she has set aside much of her own happiness to cover for Linc's behavior.

Scott, a former editor at People and Teen People magazines, has a confident style and a fine sense of pacing. All I Need to Get By (357 pages, softcover, $13.95) is published by Griffin, a division of St. Martin's Press, www.stmartins.com.

The people of basketball

Who could be more qualified to write about The Inside Game of basketball than Wayne Embry? The former Cleveland Cavaliers executive spent 40 years in the National Basketball Association, and was the first African-American general manager in sports.

The book is subtitled Race, Power, and Politics in the NBA, but Embry's conversational style will appeal to non-basketball fans. Written with Mary Schmitt Boyer, a sports and feature writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Inside Game is much more about people than about the minutiae of rules and scoring.

The Inside Game (300 pages, hardcover, $25.95) is part of the University of Akron Press Series on Ohio History and Culture, and available from www.uakron.edu/uapress.

Ohio writers' contest

It's too late to enter your terrible poetry for a 2004 BOOB award -- that stands for Best of Ohio's Bad -- but you have until Saturday to submit your manuscript in the Best of Ohio Writers '04 contest, sponsored by Ohio Writer Magazine and the Poets' and Writers' League of Greater Cleveland.

Poetry (good poetry), fiction and nonfiction will be honored with prize money and publication in Ohio Writer. There's a $15 entry fee. For more information, visit www.pwlgc.com or call 216-421-0403. (By the way, the BOOBs will be presented during a hot dog and beer bash on Hot Doggerel Day, Aug. 18, at the league's literary center in Cleveland.)

-- Barbara McIntyre

Special to the Beacon Journal