ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 17, 1996 TAG: 9611190028
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
Country musician turns detective
Reviewed by PAUL DELLINGER
THE LOVE SONG OF J. EDGAR HOOVER. By Kinky Friedman. Simon & Schuster. $23.
You may have seen Kinky Friedman popping up in odd places playing himself on TV sitcoms, or heard of his country music group, "Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys" (politically correct he's not). But you're missing something if you haven't read any of his eight mysteries in which his hero, a New York-based country musician also named Kinky Friedman, gets involved in oddball situations.
Well, here's No.9. By now, Kinky (the character) admits to seeing himself as a private eye. Until now, he has been the well-meaning amateur who gets involved in murderous situations by innocently agreeing to find someone's missing pet (``When the Cat's Away") or attending a friend's funeral and seeing a stranger in the coffin (``Frequent Flyer").
The traditional beautiful woman client wants to hire Kinky to find her missing husband.
Kinky does his bumbling best, even while being sidetracked by his reporter friend supposedly being telephoned by a ghost from his past.
Part of the fun of these books is that Kinky apparently bases many of his other continuing characters on real people, too, perhaps the best example of this literary device since Chester Anderson's "The Butterfly Kid" back in 1967.
The plot thickens as Kinky begins to wonder if his client's husband is real at all, and learns of an FBI interest in his activities. The alert reader may well figure out what's going on by page 50. But the plots are not why Kinky's books have fans from Willie Nelson to Bill Clinton; it's Kinky's laugh-out-loud irreverent and outrageous free-associating narrative.
Kinky, at least in the books, is a man who seldom takes a shower because he's too lazy to move his cat's litter box, but he is loyal to his friends and his own code of ethics, such as it is.
The result is always a fun read. President Kennedy helped boost Ian Fleming's books by admitting to being a fan, and, in retrospect, maybe we can see traces of James Bond in JFK's policies and lifestyle. Wonder what it says about President Clinton that he enjoys Kinky's antics?
Paul Dellinger covers Southwest Virginia for The Roanoke Times.
Books on Tape
Reviewed by MARY ANN JOHNSON
THE LOVE SONG OF J. EDGAR HOOVER. By Kinky Friedman. Abridged. Read by Barrett Whitener. Audio Renaissance Tapes. $16.95.
The entertaining irreverence of Kinky Friedman - as both author and character - is well rendered in Barrett Whitener's reading. And, because the essence of Friedman's books lies not in plot but in expression and humor, the abridgement does no damage to the story.
Mary Ann Johnson is book page editor.
Author teases as narrator
Reviewed by CHIP BARNETT
THE LAST THING HE WANTED. By Joan Didion. Alfred A. Knopf. $23.
One thing I know: Didion's suspenseful novel is no thriller. Yes, burned-out journalist Elena McMahon - trying to help her ill, shady father - is trapped on a Caribbean island in 1984, caught in a mysterious scheme involving assassination and Contra arms sales.
But Didion's stylistic choices make it clear that she's out for more than thrills. Take the telegraphic writing: "For the record this is me talking.
"You know me, or think you do.
"The not quite omniscient author.
"No longer moving fast.
"No longer traveling light."
The "me" here is the novel's narrator, another journalist, writing in 1994. Maybe she's "not quite omniscient," but she confidently relates Elena's thoughts and actions despite having known Elena only slightly, well before the novel's action. Are we supposed to think the narrator is Didion herself? Why the tease?
So unimportant is plot that we collect its pieces out of order and in bits and drabs, as if tossed to us as an afterthought.
Yet all this is done so skillfully and with such control that Didion must have had some higher purpose in mind. But what purpose?
I don't even know if I like the book; it was as annoying as it was powerful and gripping.
One thing I know: It's no thriller. I think.
Chip Barnett is a Rockbridge County librarian.
A generation's journey
Reviewed by NEIL HARVEY
LAST OF THE SAVAGES. By Jay McInerney. Knopf. $24.
"Last of the Savages" is about the friendship between two men (one, a wild and rebellious mess, the other a repressed, conservative bore) as they bond at prep school, grow up and take the long journey from the 1960s to today.
This isn't exactly the most original or inspired blueprint for a novel, and author Jay McInerney compounds the problem with a crucial mistake: he tells the story from the point of view of the dull guy.
McInerney can be a deft stylist and satirist (``Brightness Falls," his last book, was a rich and impressive surprise), but in the new novel he scales down his wry prose to filter it through the first-person narrative of a character with an intentionally bland voice and little imagination, and in order to cover 30 years in less than 300 pages, he often telescopes and summarizes with rushed abandon.
As such, unfortunately, "Last of the Savages" isn't so much a moving fictional memoir of an era as it is a mutation.
Yes, it's that scary. Run away.
Neil Harvey is a Blacksburg writer.
Buechner's writings still skillful perceptive,
Reviewed by MONTY LEITCH
THE LONGING FOR HOME: Recollections and Reflections. By Frederick Buechner. HarperSanFrancisco. $28.
Frederick Buechner's writing career is long and distinguished. He is the author of 14 novels and 14 books of nonfiction. Among readers familiar with the literature of Christian spirituality, Presbyterians in particular, he is a lion.
This newest, slender volume collects poems, short personal essays, a little literary criticism, a little fiction and a handful of longer essays that read very much like sermons around the theme expressed in the title - the longing for home. Where is home? Who do we get there? How do we hold the comforts of home in the heart?
It's a slender thread, indeed, upon which to hang these disparate pieces. In fact, in some spots the common thread is so nearly invisible that the collection becomes self-indulgent, a well-recognized and respected writer finding a way to publish a mess of favorite snippets and tidbits that haven't fit anywhere else.
And yet Buechner is always Buechner. Even at less-than-his-best, he's better than most. "We are not saints," he writes in one of the book's finest essays, "The Gates of Dawn."
"Most of the time our faith is weak and the God we have faith in seems far away if not absent altogether. But we go to church nonetheless in hope hope that God is truly God even so, hope that God will mend us where we are broken, and forgive us where we have a hard time forgiving ourselves, and breathe into us new life when the lives we are living seem empty and increasingly diminished by age and in the last analysis doomed."
I think this book's weaknesses can be explained (and forgiven) as the work of a writer feeling "increasingly diminished by age." But its strengths deny diminishment of perception or skill.
Monty S. Leitch is a columnist for this newspaper.
BOOKMARKS
Nobel Prize nominee Oates to read at Hollins
The following excerpt is taken from the opening of "We Were the Mulvaneys" by Joyce Carol Oates (Dutton. $24.95). Oates, who has been nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in literature, will read from and speak about this novel, as well as her book of poetry "Tenderness," in the Little Theatre at Hollins College on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
We were the Mulvaneys, remember us?
You may have thought our family was larger, often I'd meet people who believe we Mulvaneys were a virtual clan, but in fact there were only six of us.
From summer 1955 to spring 1980 when my dad and mom were forced to sell the property there were Mulvaneys at High Point Farm.
High Point Farm was a well-known property in the Valley, in time to be designated a historical landmark, and "Mulvaney" was a well-known name.
For a long time you envied us, then you pitied us.
For a long time you admired us, then you thought "Good! - that's what they deserve."
BRIEFS
Lawyer sets fast pace
LEGAL TENDER.
By Lisa Scottoline. HarperCollins. $23.
Lisa Scottoline graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and its law school. She has practiced law in a prestigious corporate law firm and served as the assistant to the chief judge of a federal appeals court. "Legal Tender" is Scottoline's fourth novel. And I expect we'll be seeing a lot more. This is a very hip, very polished and very marketable book. The central character is Benedetta "Bennie" Rosato, a tough-talking, designer-dressing young attorney who is simultaneously accused of murder, hiding from the police as she attempts to prove her innocence, caring for a mentally ill mother and watching her career, her love life and her best friend melt down.
"Legal Tender" moves a breakneck speed. Reading it will not change your life, but it will provide an entertaining and exciting respite from it.
- Judy Kweller
THE MAIN CORPSE.
By Diane Mott Davidson. Bantam. $21.95.
Davidson's latest combination mystery novel and cookbook offers up a plot simmering with financial shenanigans and intrigue along with luscious sounding recipes for Chocoholic Cookies and Tomato-Brie Pie.
Goldy's catering business is in the doldrums, but she hopes to perk things up with an investors' party at a gold mine.
The party hits a snag when Goldie's friend, Marla, has a vicious argument with one of the partners about her investments.
The matter is complicated by Marla's affair with the other partner, the charismatic Tony Royce. Before everything is sorted out, Marla is suspected of conspiracy and murder, and Goldie finds herself and her teen-age son in a fight for their lives.
Davidson's mysteries are a good quick read - sometimes as soothing as creme brulee, sometimes as lively as a brisk caper sauce.
- Anna Wentworth
LENGTH: Long : 197 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Friedman, Davidson, Oates.by CNB