Alma Mater

Alma Mater is Rita Mae Brown’s 2001 college-set coming-of-age novel and a quieter, more nostalgic companion piece to Rubyfruit Jungle. Victoria "Vic" Savedge is a senior at the fictional William Woods College in Virginia, in love with her best friend Chris Carter, in the last six weeks before everyone has to figure out adult life. The plot is small on purpose: late-spring parties, riding lessons, family dinners, a wedding looming, the question of whether Vic is going to say what she actually means before Chris marries the wrong man.

Brown is on home ground in central Virginia, and the prose carries her signature pleasures: hunt-country horses described like family, supporting-cast dialogue that does ten things at once, an unforced funny line at the end of nearly every scene. Alma Mater is more contained than her earlier work, both in scope and in heat, which is intentional. The novel’s central question is less "will Vic come out" than "will Vic finally be honest with the people she has already been honest with about almost everything else."

Best for readers who liked the equestrian-Virginia register of Brown’s Sister Jane series and want a standalone, and anyone looking for books like Rubyfruit Jungle in a softer, late-career-Brown mode. The ending earns its long held breath. Four solid stars.