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By Linda F Drattell THE PECADILLOES OF FILAMENA PHIPPS is a big-hearted picaresque tale of overcoming adversity, of boldly embracing one’s otherness, and of the value of human connection as it follows a unique young woman who braves, and forever alters, the single-mindedness of a white-picket-fence town. Ridiculousness abounds. Filamena Phipps, née Ferayinskela, doesn’t fit in North Chelsea, a large, affluent suburb near DC. In this homogeneous community where her homogeneous new husband insists on living, she is a rarity. An émigré from a war-torn country, Filamena is a non-native English speaker, she is wild-haired, she dons clothes her mother made, she’s beloved by animals, and she wears Birkenstocks while tending to her unruly vegetable garden. Filamena tries to socially ingratiate herself time and again, but she just can’t find the cultural currency her neighbors accept. She is different; she is a threat. She does not wear athleisure. The matching women on her street shut their matching front doors on her, leaving her adrift on their matching manicured lawns. But Filamena isn’t afraid of a little snubbing. So, what does she do? She kicks her cheating husband out and runs for mayor in hopes of finding acceptance in a public life that eludes her. The other women – the bullies of our story – are in love with their current mayor, and how does the handsome incumbent deal with his opposition? To much shock and envy, he is mesmerized by her. He falls in love. As Filamena’s campaign takes off, so does her garden, plants overrunning her property. Wayward people, children, and animals enjoy its verdure. Filamena’s X following grows. The mayor falls more in love each day and the disorderliness of it all is just too much for her neighbors to bear. How much more change – more Filamena -- can they possibly take? Filamena’s struggle to find her way in this upwardly mobile…