Caverns

After serving six years in San Quentin, Charles Loach joined by his brother and two mystical sisters leads his troupe on a journey to revisit a cavern that Loach claims will change the archeological history of North America

Eccentric characters and entertaining incidents boost the pace of this novel but cannot camouflage the strain imposed by its author's "split personality." Levon ("novel" spelled backwards) is the collective voice of 13 writing students and their instructor, Ken Kesey ( One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest ). The hero, Charles Oswald Loach, doctor of theosophy and ex-carny, has killed a photographer who, Loach claims, threatened to publicize a hidden cave with possibly ancient wall paintings that Loach had found. In 1934, six years after the slaying, Loach is conditionally released from prison to relocate the cave and thus substantiate his story. His entourage includes two psychic sisters, a priest, journalists, an anthropologist and a fanatical Mormon. They weather a human stampede, visit the Moab Museum of Natural Curiosities and experience a seance, and breeze through a chase scene. Occasionally, episodes remain awkwardly disparate and the humor is dissipated. The cave paintings, finally seen, provide little more than a limp punch line--considerably less than the reader expects after this fractious quest. 30,000 first printing.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With the notable exception of the Bible (which, after all, is in a class by itself), few good books have been written by committee. This novel, a collaborative effort on the part of Ken Kesey's University of Oregon writing class, is a rare exception. The story, set in the 1930s, relates the quixotic adventures of a motley group of explorers in search of a major archaeological find. The pilgrims include Charles Loach, an ex-con spiritualist; Dogeye, his recluse brother; a Mormon terrorist; a renegade priest; two clairvoyant sisters; a has-been reporter; a movie producer; an anthropophobic archaeologist; a pregnant woman; a veteran suffering the effects of mustard gas; and an armadillo. A fun read, full of daring deeds and theosophical claptrap, this novel will appeal to all Indiana Jones fans.
- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.