Pretty Is As Pretty Does - Softcover

"Clement has a funny yet frank presentation of sexuality. For at least half of the novel we find ourselves laughing page after page. The humor doesn't stop at that point, but the raw impact of chaos starts striking us.... Like the intricately aerobatic qualities of silent screen comedy this book is driven by an imaginative and high-spirited use of familiar types.... Clement goes for farce, sweeps us up in all [its] expected intensities...."
-- The Denver Post

"Pretty Is As Pretty Does is addictive. At turns lilting and jabbing, often hilarious, this beauty queen narrative describes the stranglehold of family, how it pits obligation against desire. Alison Clement doesn't pull any punches in this compellingly complex novel that proves to be tender, passionate and unruly."
-- Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk and The Miss America Family

"Alison Clement has created a memorable fictional world in which sensuality and food are inexorably bound together in the life of brash, winsome Lucy Fooshee, for whom prettiness poses an almost Zen-like conundrum. Lucy's struggle to unravel the mess of her destiny and find a way out of the hauntingly prosaic town of Palmyra makes for a riveting journey into the heart of the Midwest."
-- Abby Bardi, author of The Book of Fred

"Clement's wildly entertaining first novel presents a complex character who quenches the thirst for straightforwardness despite her many shortcomings and ignites the pages with lusty passages spurned from a volcano of pent up desire."
-- Booklist

Alison Clement has been a waitress, bartender, housepainter, and fruit picker. She lives with her partner and their two children in western Oregon, where she is an elementary school librarian.