Lucy’s Launderette is a Chick Lit novel that seems to wander around with no real sense of where it wants to go. As the book ambles idly along, it makes some interesting points, but doesn’t seem to come to any clear conclusions. Its plot is complex, yet somehow it manages not to touch the reader in any real and meaningful way. Yet many of these deficiencies can be overlooked because the book is relatively funny.

Lucy Madison works in an art gallery currently showcasing giant sculpted penises. Pushing thirty, Lucy is something of an artist herself, but she hasn’t painted in months, and she feels oddly discontented with her life. Her beloved Harley Davidson-riding grandfather has just died and, in a letter delivered posthumously, he asks her to look after his pregnant girlfriend, whom Lucy despises. Lucy’s father, a formerly conservative “Dunking and Damning Christian,” has gone AWOL, dressing like a hippy, drinking like a fish, and spending his time in pool halls. Her mother is distressed, but not because of her husband’s behavior; her favorite garden gnome was kidnapped and is currently on the Grand Tour. Meanwhile, Lucy’s mentally ill brother is stalking her, clad variously as Superman, Rasputin, and a Hollywood producer. Pretty much the only bright spot in Lucy’s existence is her best friend Sky.

When avant-garde artist Paul Bleeker, comes into Lucy’s life, they embark on a very unsatisfying affair. Their first sexual encounter takes twenty-three seconds – three of which are used up by putting on the condom. Lucy says wryly that “sex with him always happened like an air raid.” It takes Lucy an unreasonably long time to see what is obvious to the discerning reader from the beginning – that Paul is a “first-class weirdo.” Lucy continues her vague affair with Paul for half the book, while she’s also posing nude for him. At the same time, she’s quite taken with Sam Trelawny, a social worker assigned to her brother’s case. She hasn’t actually met him, but he seems like a nice guy on the phone. But when and if she finally meets Sam, will he be everything she hopes for?

Eventually Lucy quits her job, gives up on Paul, and moves into her grandfather’s landerette. She has a hard time letting her grandfather go, and being in a place she associates with peaceful, happy times in her childhood makes her feel better. Lucy begins painting again, and one day a woman knocks at the window, asking if she can do laundry. Lucy takes the “Closed Until Further Notice” sign down (even though it’s technically not her business) and begins to dream of ways to revamp the place.

In the meantime, Connie, her grandfather’s pregnant girlfriend, gets a grip on herself and, with the help of Sky’s mother Reebee, turns into a halfway decent person. In fact, Lucy moves in with Connie and they go into business together. There are numerous other characters: Jacques, hopelessly in love with his girlfriend since college, despite the fact that she cheats on him on a regular basis; Bob, the manager of the launderette, confined to a wheelchair since the accident that killed his “woman;” Max, Sky’s boyfriend, a straight man pretending, for complicated reasons, to be flamboyantly gay; and Candy, a formerly body-pierced, hair-dyed rebel who’s on Prozac and whose bright intellect has been replaced by a Stepford Wives stare. The necessity of keeping track of all these characters and the ways they fit together make for some pretty heavy reading.

This book is quite complex and difficult to synopsize. While it’s unusually loaded with characters, several of them mature quite a bit (including Lucy), and their relationships grow and change as they learn. Most of the characters are fairly likable, but they’re not fully developed, and because of that they failed to grab my emotions. The only character I really cared about was Lucy, who’s a more substantial leading character than the average Chick Lit heroine, although I could have wished her to see through Paul a bit more readily.

Unfortunately, the plot only interested me intermittently. To put it bluntly, the book meanders. It doesn’t just go from point A to point B; it wanders through points E, S, and X while it’s at it. The first half of the book is too long and unfocused – in fact, we’re more than halfway into the book by the time we actually encounter the launderette of the title. Once Lucy steps into the launderette, however, the pace picks up and the plot seems to drive in a more straighforward direction.

Despite the fact that it deals with mental illness, death, and other heavy subjects, Lucy’s Launderette isn’t quite as deep as you might think and is actually very funny in spots. Indeed, this novel deals very well with serious issues – it’s humorous without being unduly flippant. While much of it entertains to some degree, it is ultimately marred by a lack of focus and too many characters.