NIGHT TIME LOSING: Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals

Musicians, barflies, ex-cons, and hustlers surround Jesse Wales, who wants to make sense of the women in his past, present, and possibly his future, attend to his son, stay high, and enjoy it all

Checking into honky-tonks from Louisiana to Texas to Mexico, this raunchy, overwritten first novel captures the pulse of the musician's rootless life, an amorphous series of gigs, motels, cheap highs and cosmic sex on the run. Pianist Jesse Wales, rhythm-and-blues wild-man from New Orleans, is emotionally torn between his ex-wife, embittered Jesus freak Nadine, and his married girlfriend Elaine, a rock 'n' roll critic with whom he shares mescal and oral sex. Nearly everyone in this repetitious road saga seeks salvation: Danny, Jesse's rockabilly buddy, discovers "Jesus doesn't work any more," and flips out; mobile home salesman Henry Reed is a guru who helps others perform "the Work"; Jesse and sundry lovers seem to think their orifices are windows to heaven. Ventura ( Shadow Dancing in the U.S.A. ) propels his scruffy hero through a near-death experience, lyrically and powerfully evoked, after which this part-time father draws closer to his son, Little Jesse, who was molded by his religious mom. Some of this novel's punchiest effects come from song lyrics interwoven with the story to amplify scenes and moments.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Honky-tonk pianist Jesse Wales has spent years around the Austin club scene. Together with Nadine, his estranged wife, and rockabilly singer Danny, he inhabits an artistic and metaphysical night world. Through his music he becomes a conduit for powerful spiritual forces that push him toward the edge of consciousness. After Danny's sudden death, Jesse slips over the edge, ending up in an Arizona motel room where he confronts these dark forces and ultimately attains a degree of peace with himself. By turns visionary and overly dense, wildly original and highly convoluted, the novel is notable for Ventura's insights into the relation of black American music and voodoo.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.