Traffic and Laughter

The preservation of the world from the Bomb hangs on the love affairs and political intrigues of a television star, a special effects expert, a pair of diplomats, and a South African rock group

From its beginning scenes of a flash fire racing down the canyon toward the home of lilac-eyed L.A. disk jockey Sylvia Walters--even as she and Michael Bonner, a movie special-effects designer whom she has just interviewed for her radio show, couple feverishly on the living room floor--Mooney's second novel ( Easy Travel to Other Planets ) races headlong. A sense of urgency and danger envelops the 10 main characters, who are involved in a complex gridlock of relationships in this stylish thriller cum metaphysical literary novel. As Sylvia and Michael's affair continues to sizzle, she becomes friendly with South African actress Nomanzi Lolombela, who is a gun-runner for the anti-apartheid underground in her native land; meanwhile, the two women's fathers, both career diplomats, are engaged in top-secret negotiations in Europe over a possible demonstration test for a fission bomb that could destroy the planet. Menacingly omnipresent is a figure who may or may not be the ghost of Sylvia's uncle. Mooney's writing is so lively that readers may forgive his overblown prose, fulsomely arch tone and pretentious cosmic pronouncements. Laced with ironies that culminate in a crowning incident on the novel's last page, this is a compulsive whirlwind of a read, a book that should win new fans for those who enjoy Mooney's sophisticated view of life as a very grave farce.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In 1981 Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, reviewing Mooney's first novel Easy Travel to Other Planets ( LJ 9/15/81) in the New York Times , noted that, "When Mooney relaxes a little more, something first rate is likely to result." Unfortunately, Mooney still seems a bit tense. Not that his second novel is devoid of merit. But because it tries so hard, its dramatic edge is dulled (as is its eroticism). The story has intriguing possibilities. Based on a rewrite of history, it involves diplomatic maneuvering undertaken to prevent a test of the first atomic bomb while using the threat of just such a test to induce an end to South African apartheid. Caught in the midst of the wrangling are the daughters of two of the diplomats--plus a Hollywood special effects genius, a South African rock band, and a ghost-cum-intelligence agent. Because the book has all the elements of a best seller, it is too bad that excess verbiage obscures the novel's vision that the simple, random act often has the greatest impact on humanity's destiny. Interesting but overwrought. For general audiences.
- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.