SPENCE + LILA by Bobbie Ann...

SPENCE + LILA by Bobbie Ann Mason; illustrated by LaNelle Mason (Harper & Row: $6.95)

Spence and Lila Culpepper have lived more than 40 years of married life on a farm in Kentucky, raising calves and ducklings, two daughters and a son. On a trip to Disneyland, Lila begins to have dizzy spells, which the doctors diagnose as tiny strokes. But they also find a knot in her left breast.

“Spence + Lila” spans the two weeks during which Lila undergoes a mastectomy and subsequent surgery for a clogged artery in her neck. As Lila and Spence are separated for the first time since Spence’s tour of duty in World War II, the couple face the prospect of what might be a final separation.

Bobbie Ann Mason intersperses Spence and Lila’s individual memories--Lila reading Spence’s letters aloud to her baby while Spence is overseas; Spence musing over the war--amid the hospital regimen.

Lila makes it through, however, and in the end prunes her garden.