A first collection of three long pieces, all set in the 1940s--""dark and ignorant times"" for the small-town folk that...

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A CONGRESS OF WONDERS

A first collection of three long pieces, all set in the 1940s--""dark and ignorant times"" for the small-town folk that McClanahan (The Natural Man, 1983, etc.) continues to bring to life in his inimitable country-lyrical style. ""Juanita and the Frog Prince,"" the unlikely tale of a ""hoosegow scullery maid"" and a jail inmate with two noses, boldly veers into the fabulistic, with the slutty girl and the freak thug uniting in a weird transmigration of souls. Juanita Pence, knocked up by the ""devious, dissolute, thieving, and mean"" Warren Skidmore Harding, unburdens herself to the toad-ugly Luther ""Two Noses"" Jukes, who's sitting in jail for blowing up Lugnuts Bludgins, another no-count who made fun of Luther's face. As a child, Luther had been sold into sideshow infamy by his crazy mother. On the road, he appeared with the smooth-talking Rev. Philander Cosmo Rexroat, who changed his act from itinerant preacher to freak-show barker. Rexroat's presence links all three stories. ""The Congress of Wonders"" records a day in the life of his sad and seedy sideshow, circa 1944. Mostly ""a pickled-punk show"" of manufactured oddities, its one true attraction is JoJo, a true ""morphadyke,"" who triples as the Bodiless Head and the Bearded Lady. Everyone pays to see the strange hermaphrodite ""pokerate itself,"" but the real wonder is its genuine insight into the future. Finally, in ""Finch's Song: A School Bus Tragedy,"" Rexroat offers his""Electro-Magno-Static-Diagnosis Machine"" (formerly an electric chair in his sideshow) to diagnose the ailments of Clarence ""Finch"" Fronk, a pitiful and sickly school-bus driver who's tormented by his older half-brother, a bitter and mean pool-hall owner who drives Clarence to a transcendent suicide. McClanahan's old-timey slang and down-home wit endow his trash, drifters, cons, and rubes with poetry and magic.

Pub Date: May 28, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Counterpoint

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996

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