SEX & SUNSETS

by Tim Sandlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1987

Ex-hippie pursues bride in an offbeat comedy about erotic obsession; a first novel that lacks the energy to carry the reader through its many implausibilities. Kelly Palomino is the best dishwasher in Jackson, Wyoming; he also hears voices in running water, sees a shrink, and once almost killed himself with a tequila injection. What he has behind him is a degree in sociology, four unpublished novels, a hippie phase with all the trimmings, and a six-year marriage to Julie, who walled out on him. What he sees in front of him, one pretty April day, is a bride punting a football. It's love at first sight. Kelly crashes the reception. ""Twenty thousand weddings a day in this country, and the nut comes to mine,"" says Colette the bride. Her in-laws have him served with a peace warrant. Undaunted, Kelly hang-glides onto the family ranch. Colette is impressed, despite her later discovery that Kelly got fellatio from a hitchhiker just before their first date. Her father-in-law uses his clout to have Kelly fired and evicted; meanwhile, wife Julie and his mom are planning to have him institutionalized. The only good news for Kelly, now holed up in the woods above the ranch, is that Colette has come around; yep, the lady loves him. In a final flurry, Kelly is arrested, jailed, escapes, and rides off into the sunset with Colette. Kelly is a man more whimsically afflicted than obsessed, and Colette is obliged to execute too many U-turns to be credible; no wonder then that this novel is hollow at its center. What promise it does have lies in some snappy dialogue, and two briskly comic sex scenes.

Pub Date: April 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION