Thank You, Queen Isabella (Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities (Paperback))

Book by Works, John

The first fiction title issued by this university press is a dark comedy about the decline of an innocuous young Dallas man. Seen one way, Garland Wyatt's problem is too much money. A trust fund has maintained him in a dream world that a stint in the legal profession and a Mexican bender with a homicidal Alabama bigot rudely dispel. "I've been had," he thinks, viewing the modern world. "I'm perfectly suited to life in 1750. Why didn't somebody tell me?" His main interlocutorsWyatt Senior, whose sole interests are the judicial system and a divorcee tax lawyer; Sara, the former girlfriend who left because Garland wasn't fun anymore; her new flame Richard Bing, a well-adjusted white collar psychopath; and Marvin Jessup, six feet under, assaulting the world record for being buried alivedon't tell Garland much beyond "get lost." And by the end of his hair-raising competition with Bing, Wyatt's as lost as you get. With well-paced, deadpan delivery, the novel is effective tragicomedy. Still, the Wyatts' maid, Hattie, the only sympathetic character here, asks a key question: "What is it about boys like you that got so much but feel so bad?" and disappointingly, the author never ventures a reply.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.