Living in Little Rock With Mis

As Little Rock debates over creationism and evolution, the marriage of millionaire lawyer Charles Morrison and his liberal wife, Lianne, becomes both a catalyst and a target, in a zany story narrated by the Holy Ghost. By the author of Jujitsu for Christ. 20,000 first printing.

Love, vengeance and murder are mere points of departure for this colorful, dizzying tale of politics, religion, marriage, loyalty, survival, self-invention, and storytelling set in the Arkansas of the early 1980s. With a distinctive mix of humor, insight and metafictional razzmatazz, Butler ( Jujitsu for Christ ; Nightshade ) portrays the lives of Charles Morrison, a super-rich attorney and scion of one of Little Rock's foremost families, and his wife, Lianne, an emotionally scarred former Miss Little Rock and retired TV news personality. Outspoken champions of liberal causes, the handsome and wealthy Morrisons rankle some of the city's less glamorous, more old-fashioned types. Still, no one can foresee the violence that will ensue. Narrated by the Holy Ghost ("Talk about your omniscient narrators"), who likes to be called Hog and who periodically editorializes in a quirky dialect, Butler's concoction bubbles over with sassy profundities and structural ironies. The author himself appears, as a speaker at Lianne's book club dinner, and comments, "I don't think the author belongs in his own stories." These games, though at times self-indulgent, frame a virtuoso conventional narrative. Butler masterfully evokes Arkansas and the times, explicating the subtleties of his characters' relationships with stunning authenticity.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A fat, slathering mix of high spirits, crime melodrama, metafiction, and narrative cuteness bakes up Butler's third novel (Jujitsu for Christ, 1986; Nightshade, 1989)--set in guess where, during a short period, 1981, when Bill Clinton is not Arkansas's governor and when a ``Creation Science'' bill is up before the legislature, paining every enlightened Arkansan. (The book does satisfy a journalistic curiosity as to what the President's state has been like, socially and politically, lo these many years.) Charles Morrison is one of these liberal souls, a wealthy lawyer with black and female associates and a man squarely in the way of certain redneck authorities. Someone's out to get Morrison, too- -setting him up in various ways, one of which shakes his beautiful beauty-queen wife Lianne's faith in his fidelity. The Morrisons' childless but mythically perfect marriage is the barometric stage where all things political, sexual, or spiritual are registered and played out; and when Morrison's enemies then strike at Lianne, tragedy ensues. Butler writes best when he's a social chronicler, and almost as effectively when he's the inner-voice of Morrison's cheerful libido. Much less happy are the sophomoric effects strained for (such as flow charts of characters' thoughts; or the introduction of the author himself, Jack Butler, as the guest once of Lianne's book-circle group; or intermezzi featuring God) that take up so much self-indulgent time and space here. (Did an editor's pencil touch this book, even attempt to keep Butler from being his own talent's worst enemy?) Bat your way through all the froth and you get an interesting-enough portrait of the recent New South--but know that it's a major undertaking for only a moderate reward. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

With Arkansas in the forefront of the news, Butler's challenging tale of love, lust, and loss in Little Rock has all the ingredients of a winner. There is Lianne, a former beauty queen and television personality and her husband, Charles, a successful liberal lawyer and millionaire. There are also the members of Charles's firm: Tina, a poor girl made good; Lafayette, an African American former football star; and Greg, the token WASP. There's cocaine, a hostile sheriff, a creation science law, group therapy, and a couple of inept assassins. The whole story is narrated by the Holy Ghost in an Ozark accent. With multiple viewpoints, stream-of-consciousness narrative, and more than one demented character, this is not an easy read. But in the end, it is a highly satisfying one from a very talented Southern author ( Jujitsu for Christ , August House, 1986). Recommended for larger general collections.
- Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.