Velma Still Cooks in Leeway by Vinita Hampton Wright

First published: Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holman, 2000

Genre(s): Novel

Subgenre(s): Evangelical fiction; literary fiction

Core issue(s): Compassion; faith; forgiveness; healing; love; redemption; sin and sinners

Principal characters

• Velma Brendle, the protagonist, owner of the town diner
• Doris Pines, a neighbor
• Shellye Pines, a neighbor
• Len Connor, the father of Shellye’s baby
• Jack Thomas, a pastor
• Howard, an ailing relative
• Grady Lewis, an abusive husband

Overview

In Vinita Hampton Wright’s novel Velma Still Cooks in Leeway, the title character, Velma Brendle, operates the only restaurant in the small town of Leeway, Kansas. The regular crowd feels like family, and Velma prays for her customers. People’s stories and struggles weigh on Velma, so she works a few hours a week as janitor at Jerusalem Baptist Church seeking quiet. The past two years have been tough. She feels that God has not come through for her town, but she senses a revelation approaching.

In spring, 1996, Velma’s eighteen-year-old neighbor, Shellye Pines, “turns up” pregnant. Two months before, Shellye had come to Velma teary-eyed and bruised. Len Connor, the youth group’s golden boy, had taken her virginity. When Shellye names the father, “good ol’ boy” Pastor Jack Thomas (in whom Velma has never placed her trust) asks if she is sure. Riled, Shellye maintains that Len was the only man who could have caused the pregnancy and that he forced her. Len denies it.

Hurt that she is not believed, Shellye stops going to church. Her mother, Doris, unsettled since her husband’s desertion years ago, is emotionally absent, adding to Shellye’s stress. Velma often welcomes the girl into her home, offering her the emotional support that Doris does not. Cousin Howard calls in late May. Thirty-eight, fighting cancer, and without a job or insurance, he needs a place to live. He moves in and thanks Velma but seems removed from his feelings about his nearing death. Howard likes Velma’s church friends, however, and notes he is seeing what he has missed.

At a revival meeting, the evangelist preaches that God supplies grace moment by moment. Shellye goes forward at the invitation. She says God is giving her the grace to raise her own baby. When the evangelist asks who will stand with Shellye, more than half the church and Pastor Thomas stand. Shellye then returns to the church, and Grady Lewis spends time with her. Although Velma would not have chosen him, he seems godly, and he proposes in late July. Velma feels disturbed when Grady insists that she wear a cream dress (denoting that she is not a virgin). Shellye, having been raped, believes that she remains a virgin because the rape was against her will. Despite her occasional misgivings about Grady and his rigid standards, Velma delights in catering the wedding reception. She watches Grady’s looks of love and scolds herself for worrying about this pairing.

In October, Len comes to Velma’s front door. Velma reminds him that there are some hurts to clear. Len and Shellye agree to talk at Velma’s home, but Shellye makes Velma promise not to tell the overprotective Grady. Len apologizes for his actions and confesses to his father and Pastor Thomas that he raped Shellye. Grady confronts Pastor Thomas about letting Len off without prosecution, but the pastor is thankful that Len and Shellye have found some resolution.

Shellye’s daughter is born. Doris, though delighted, feels unprepared to be a grandmother. At Christmas, Shellye brings homemade candy to Velma. As Shellye prepares to leave, Velma notices that she has a big, ugly bruise; after she departs, Velma realizes that the bruise is shaped like fingers. At about the same time, Pastor Thomas asks Velma to talk to Shellye about her attitude: Grady is frustrated by Shellye’s not cooperating with his spiritual leadership. Velma responds that Grady may be expecting too much of the tired new mother and then speaks with Shellye—almost asking her if Grady is hurting her but allowing Shellye to gloss things over. The next time Shellye comes to her house, Velma asks about the red mark on her cheek, and Shellye admits that Grady slapped her as a reflex when she overstepped. Pastor Thomas and Grady appear, and Grady apologizes repeatedly. Velma almost asks Thomas if this has happened before, but she lets it ride because the couple are apparently making progress.

When Velma cooks German dishes, Howard devours them and urges her to serve them at the diner. He, Shellye, and Doris brainstorm about decor and names. They work hard to persuade Velma that a change is possible. In the meantime, throughout the winter months and into the spring, Velma and Doris both provide Shellye and the baby shelter whenever she flees Grady’s temper. During such episodes, Shellye instead seeks counsel with Pastor Thomas and ends by going home to Grady. Velma prays to God on behalf of her troubled friends.

The deacons vote not to make Grady a deacon and ask him to step down from teaching to focus on his marriage. Shellye cries all the way to the car. Pastor Thomas implies to Velma that he does not want Shellye hurt, as she was when he and others refused to believe Len raped her. Four days prior to the opening of Velma’s new restaurant, Little Germany, another bad spell drives Shellye to her mother’s and then back home to Grady. This time, Pastor Thomas counsels her to stay away from Grady longer.

At a celebration of the restaurant’s opening, Velma notices how good Howard looks. In the midst of Shellye’s struggles and Velma’s worries, she has not noticed that God is healing Howard. After the restaurant closes, Howard and Velma take leftovers by Grady and Shellye’s house. No one answers the door, so they slip into the kitchen. Velma smells blood. They spot a trail of blood, which leads to Doris’s body. Howard calls 911 and searches for Shellye. The police come, and Shellye and the baby are found outside. At the hospital, the horrifying details emerge: Her mother suspected trouble and arrived when Grady was abusing Shellye. He turned on Doris. In the end, therefore, Doris saved her daughter, vindicating her role as Shellye’s mother by giving her own life for Shellye.

In August, Howard gathers his things to return home. He says that Shellye has forgiven Len and the church people and probably will forgive Grady, too. Shellye truly knows how to love. In her journals, Velma addresses God to work through bad memories and find sense and solace. Velma still cooks in Leeway and she observes the Lord’s love slipping in wherever it can.

Christian Themes

An overtly Christian novel—with each chapter introduced by an epigraph from the book of Ezekiel and ending with a recipe from Velma’s restaurant—Velma Still Cooks in Leeway nevertheless speaks to nonbelievers as powerfully as it does to believers. Although the small community of Leeway, Kansas, appears to be a quiet town, events of eternal proportion rock Velma’s secluded world. Velma finds herself surrounded by family, neighbors, and customers who wrestle with sin in their lives. Much needs to be forgiven in this close-knit community, and on many levels. Velma must forgive her neighbor, who deserted his wife and daughter. She must forgive the abandoned wife, Doris, who never recovered emotionally and is initially unable to meet her daughter’s needs. The community must forgive Len, the young man who date-raped the daughter, Shellye. Velma must forgive the church members who let Shellye down in her time of need. She must also forgive herself for doing the same. Subplots also call for mercy and forgiveness adding depth and creating a poignant, echoing call for Christians to extend God’s grace to each other.

When Grady, Shellye’s new husband and presumed rescuer, abuses her, the people of Leeway—like ordinary people everywhere—are surprised by their own blindness. They operate as though the troubling things in life will correct themselves as long as people doing the best they can. It takes Doris’s murder to shake them awake, and in hindsight they finally perceive their own complicity in the abuse, realizing that they should have acted on the little warnings they thought they saw instead of making allowances for a man who seemed devoted to God. Velma realizes that she, too, has been locked into a dangerous pattern. Like her mother and her grandmother before her, she did not speak when she had the power to do so.

A forerunner of Wright’s edgier Christian fiction, Velma Still Cooks in Leeway presents a disturbing yet reassuring exploration of the basic need for forgiveness and people’s corresponding need to grant forgiveness. Both actions are rooted in God’s love and sacrifice. Even when sin and its consequences invade lives, God’s divine forgiveness and love gently sustain his people.

Sources for Further Study

Mort, John. Review of Velma Still Cooks in Leeway. Booklist 97, no. 3 (October 1, 2000): 304. Touts Wright as a “rarity” in the world of Christian fiction writers.

Publishers Weekly. Review of Velma Still Cooks in Leeway. 247, no. 30 (July 24, 2000): 66. Recognizes Wright’s novel as a “bona-fide work of literary fiction” worthy of readership inside and outside the Christian market.

Winner, Lauren F. “The Wright Stuff.” Christianity Today 45 (April 23, 2001): 84-87. Discusses Wright’s books and her opinion on changes in the caliber of Christian fiction and the level of artistry developing among Christian writers.

Wright, Vinita Hampton. “A Life of Quiet Grace.” Interview by Jana Reiss. Publishers Weekly 247, no. 38 (September 18, 2000): 82. Wright comments on her choice to write about Christians as ordinary, not idealized, people.