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The novel itself shows a lot of leg, dancing back and forth between the few days before the murder (in which we get to see the growing friendship between the two women) and the days after (in which Blanche tries to figure out the mystery of her dear new friend's death). This sets a jaunty pace, and emerging from it is a portrait quite compelling of two strong, if eccentric, women and the city they live in: raucous, violent, charming, filthy, plague-ridden San Francisco. And what turns out to be a portrait — complete with explicit scenes of intense fornication and blazing fisticuffs — of their brief affair.

Though Donoghue poses the book as a mystery — who killed Jenny Bonnet? — it's equally a celebration of love despite hardships galore, and the rising call of motherhood against near impossible odds. With, I should add, a soundtrack on the page of vintage music hall songs, some of which are the raunchiest you'll ever hear. Cock your head! Listen! Ah! Frog music!

Read an excerpt of Frog Music

Misha Kostin, a 21-year-old construction engineer in eastern Ukraine, loves The Simpsons. He's loved it for 10 years. He says the animated series "illustrates everyday life problems in humorous ways, and offers a useful moral at the end of each episode."

And though Kostin and most of the people in eastern Ukraine are native Russian speakers, he prefers to download episodes dubbed not in Russian but in his second language, Ukrainian. All his friends in the city of Donetsk prefer the version dubbed in Ukrainian.

"They talk in Russian, they think in Russian," and even their parents speak only Russian, he says of his friends. "But Simpsons? They like in Ukrainian."

Vladimir Lykov, creative director of an animation studio in Donetsk, agrees that The Simpsons is more popular in Ukrainian than are some other shows, like Family Guy.

In the recent crisis in Ukraine, much has been made of the divisions between Russian speakers, who are the majority in the east and the south, and the Ukrainian-speakers, who are dominant in the western part of the country.

But Lykov says language in Ukraine has always been more a political tool of division than an actual divide. People in eastern Ukraine — especially those under 35, who came of age after the Soviet Union collapsed — like being bilingual, he says.

"Unfortunately," he says, "The media likes to show that only Russians live here and only Ukrainians live in western Ukraine. Actually people here have no trouble understanding both languages. And Ukrainian is even funnier for Russian-speakers [because] it's got cleverer slang."

He blames the media, controlled by oligarchs and Ukrainian politicians, for exaggerating the language divide. He says it has always been easier to stoke language fears than address real problems, like the lack of jobs or the stumbling economy.

The new head of General Motors, Mary Barra, goes to Capitol Hill Tuesday to begin two days of testimony.

It's the first time she'll be questioned about a safety defect that's been linked to at least 13 deaths and has sparked a 2.6-million-vehicle recall.

At issue for the Detroit CEO is the classic question: What did GM know about the problems with ignition switch problems in its cars, and when did the company know it?

And just as important for GM and government regulators is the follow-up question: Why did no one act sooner?

In the recent history of General Motors, there's one car that sort of symbolizes the problems of the old GM: the Chevy Cobalt.

'A Moment Of Panic'

The car is currently the subject of about a half-dozen investigations. Even if more than 1 million Cobalts were not being recalled, the cars would still have a bad reputation, simply for not being a quality vehicle.

Scott Oldham of Edmunds.com says that's hindsight. "At the time, in the context of what GM was making before the Cobalt, it was seen, for the most part, as a giant leap forward," he says.

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A History Of GM's Ignition Switch Defect

One great mystery of sport is why they call the place that the general manager rules over the front office. Obviously, it's the box office that's out front. What they call the front office is really the "office office."

The front office has grown exponentially. Once it was pretty much just the general manager. Now it's added scouts and assistant GMs and statisticians. Another change: The general manager is usually called president. And once GMs started to be called presidents, the law of unintended consequences set in and that made an owner think that to one-up his president, he had to do more than just own.

Coaches get famous, but as a general rule, coaches don't make good general managers. Different talents. It's like the best assistant coaches usually don't make good head coaches. Different talents.

Recently, the New York Knicks named brilliant coach Phil Jackson to be general manager, er, president. What made Jackson so successful as coach was that he could relate to his players, actually coach them. He had a shtick that was hyped as sort of a trickle-down zen. However, these talents are pretty useless in the front office. Jackson will surely get a disciple to coach the team. Everybody will say Jackson has installed so-and-so as his coach, which sounds to the players like they just put in a new washing machine. It never works.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on the issue.