A Congress of Wonders - Softcover

McClanahan, Ed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1887178562 ISBN 13: 9781887178563

Publisher: Counterpoint, 1997

Synopsis

At once compassionate and outrageously funny, the three stories in this collection take us to the fictional town of Needmore, Kentucky, where Ed McClanahans distinctive mixture of irreverence and humility captures the absurdities of a world in which bizarre events alter peoples lives.

About this title

Review:

In McClanahan's second novel, the antics of Professor Philander Cosmo Rextroat, B.S., M.A. and "Pee Aitch Dee," an amusing, Kentucky-bred flimflam artist tie together three novella length, modern-day fairy tales. Set during World War II, the opening story, "Juanita and the Frog Prince," recounts a maid's deliverance from an unlucky pregnancy through a magical encounter with a dwarf awaiting trial for murder in the jail where she cleans. In the title story, Rextroat is the proprietor of a phony freak show who tries to quell a young boy's concern for his brother who is going to war. Each neo-gothic tale contains a bittersweet message laced with alchemy and love.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A first collection of three long pieces, all set in the 1940s- -``dark and ignorant times'' for the small-town folk that McClanahan (The Natural Man, 1983, etc.) continues to bring to life in his inimitable country-lyrical style. ``Juanita and the Frog Prince,'' the unlikely tale of a ``hoosegow scullery maid'' and a jail inmate with two noses, boldly veers into the fabulistic, with the slutty girl and the freak thug uniting in a weird transmigration of souls. Juanita Pence, knocked up by the ``devious, dissolute, thieving, and mean'' Warren Skidmore Harding, unburdens herself to the toad-ugly Luther ``Two Noses'' Jukes, who's sitting in jail for blowing up Lugnuts Bludgins, another no-count who made fun of Luther's face. As a child, Luther had been sold into sideshow infamy by his crazy mother. On the road, he appeared with the smooth-talking Rev. Philander Cosmo Rexroat, who changed his act from itinerant preacher to freak-show barker. Rexroat's presence links all three stories. ``The Congress of Wonders'' records a day in the life of his sad and seedy sideshow, circa 1944. Mostly ``a pickled-punk show'' of manufactured oddities, its one true attraction is JoJo, a true ``morphadyke,'' who triples as the Bodiless Head and the Bearded Lady. Everyone pays to see the strange hermaphrodite ``pokerate itself,'' but the real wonder is its genuine insight into the future. Finally, in ``Finch's Song: A School Bus Tragedy,'' Rexroat offers his ``Electro-Magno-Static-Diagnosis Machine'' (formerly an electric chair in his sideshow) to diagnose the ailments of Clarence ``Finch'' Fronk, a pitiful and sickly school-bus driver who's tormented by his older half-brother, a bitter and mean pool-hall owner who drives Clarence to a transcendent suicide. McClanahan's old-timey slang and down-home wit endow his trash, drifters, cons, and rubes with poetry and magic. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1887178562
• ISBN 13: 9781887178563
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176