The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living - Hardcover

Clark, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375407251 ISBN 13: 9780375407253

Publisher: Knopf, 2000

Synopsis

Meet Evers Wheeling of Norton, North Carolina. A semidissolute judge, undistracted by children, hobbies, or a fulfilling marriage, he's moving down the road to nowhere at a furious clip -- until the morning he's confronted by Ruth Esther English, an attractive young woman whose dim-witted brother happens to be up on drug charges.
Within days, Evers is the Englishes' reluctant coconspirator, abetted by his pothead brother Pascal (he of the double-wide trailer) and Pascal's faux-white-trash cohorts. And his suddenly outlandish life includes an interstate treasure hunt, a terrible act of marital vengeance, a sleazy antiques dealer, twice-stolen money, a mysteriously valuable letter, a baffling murder trial, and a love-interest attorney who considers him the poster boy for the sexist and racist legal establishment -- not to mention the alabaster tears miraculously cried by Ruth Esther.
Combining high comedy and existential, even spiritual compulsion, Martin Clark has converted every risk he's taken into high-test storytelling that's as fresh as the infant century.

About this title

Review:

Penzler Pick, April 2000: The world of mystery has long accepted the occasional offbeat tour de force that veers into the realm of uncertain reality. Even if its author might be startled to hear it, The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living fits comfortably, I think, into the splendid list that includes John Dickson Carr's The Burning Court, Russell Greenan's It Happened in Boston, and William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel. At the same time, it is like none of those books. Imagine John Grisham crossed with Alice Hoffman and you might come closer to what's going on in these highly entertaining pages.

The story itself offers interlocking strands that come together in the person of Evers Wheeling, a preternaturally young North Carolina judge who's headed to the dogs with his eyes wide open, "waiting to hit bottom," as he puts it. But just before he makes it there, into his life comes a blonde in trouble with an outrageous (and ever-mutating) tale of a brother who needs help avoiding a jail sentence. That this brother turns out not to resemble his sister in the slightest--he's an African-American dwarf, and strong for his size--is just a small surprise in the overall scheme of things. (Here you might start trying to picture The Maltese Falcon as rewritten by Charles Portis.)

There's an elusive prize, possibly a cache of rare stamps worth millions, and a decided falling-out between an uncertain alliance of thieves; there's also a brutal murder, one that's close enough to home to put Evers Wheeling on trial for his own life. In addition to all this, there's Evers's brother, Pascal, to reckon with: he's the one with the double-wide trailer parked back in the woods, the IQ that's off the charts, the preference for staying stoned, and the one trying to help his sibling in any way he can, no matter the illegality.

The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living is enough to put Good Ole Boys back in style. But until Martin Clark writes his next book, I guess all I can do is go back and reread Michael Malone's equally memorable--and moving--Handling Sin, perhaps the best Southern novel of the past quarter-century. --Otto Penzler

From the Publisher:

"Aside from having the best title I've heard in years, Martin Clark's The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living is a wonderfully unique read, charming and funny and touching and twisted, as fresh and tart as a perfect martini. I was crazy about it."
-- James Crumley

"This is a grand, rumbling ride through the world of Evers Wheeling and wild company. Clark's novel is without restraint and perhaps without precedent, unless we consider another man with a mission, Ignatius R. Reilly, juggling a steady job, a perpetual hangover, and a fleet of outstanding weirdos. If I did not live such a sheltered existence, this is the book I'd love to write."
-- Kaye Gibbons

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0375407251
• ISBN 13: 9780375407253
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352