The life philosophy of Ruth Caster Armstrong Hubble, age 88, can be largely summarized by her attitude toward piano practice: "The trick was to keep banging away and not waste energy fretting about things that couldn't be changed. Like life itself. Mistakes were part of the music." It also helps to create habits and routines that lessen the chance of unpleasant surprises. Kate Phillips' first novel follows Ruth through a day of routines in her Laguna Beach retirement condo. Because it happens to be the first day of the month, Ruth can add to her usual daily schedule the family tradition of saying "white rabbit" to another relative and gaining a month of good luck.

But things start to go wrong from that very first phone call. Henry, Ruth's doltish though good-natured husband (via a "bargain basement" second marriage), manages to supply a carefully formulated breakfast on a tray, but as Ruth chews she wonders, "How in God's name could her life have turned out like this? A pile of shriveled-up prunes." Just as floating streaks of rabbit-shaped light blur her ordinarily perfect vision, Ruth's reliable daily regime -- her carefully arranged morning toilette, the Garbage Arrangement, the Refrigerator Rules, her exercise game called Destination Zigzag -- goes haywire. So do her cherished memories. Counterpoint to Ruth's sterile, charmless condo life plays a history rich with possibilities and romance: her own -- with her beloved first husband Hale, followed by a fervent suitor of her widowhood -- and those of her friends and relatives, particularly her passionate aunt. But even these reliable recollections start taking on ambiguity and dissolving into uncertainty as the day passes. Ruth's haughty, ordered, no-nonsense exterior starts to crack, and her neurotic compulsions become all the more poignant when her well-masked point of vulnerability is finally revealed. "The promise of happiness was always so rich and infinite, the reality so abridged," Ruth muses, too late in the day.

Despite a few overly exaggerated (and thus unbelievable) sequences and minor characters, Kate Phillips maintains a poised control over her story, breathing life into her central characters by degrees and allowing them just enough personality quirks to make them compelling. Meanwhile she leads them almost imperceptibly toward a surprising, yet appropriate, ending. Phillips doesn't cinch her story too tightly at the end (a common fault of insecure first novelists) but life rarely does either. Instead, "White Rabbit" concludes on a sad and utterly realistic note.

--Kate Moses