SUNBURN LAKE

by Tom De Haven ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 19, 1988

Three long stories by De Haven (Freaks' Amour, Jersey Luck, Funny Papers), all New Jersey-set and distributed in time--past, present, and future. The first and best tale is ""Clap Hands! Here Comes Charley""--about a 30's-era traveling salesman of newspaper features in temporary guardianship of his nephew (whose floozy mother has mn off on an adventure with some loser to Texas). The nephew is radio-serial-obsessed; and during a trip to a small-town Jersey newspaper, he and his uncle find themselves surrounded by eyewitnesses to a lurid gunning-down of a notorious criminal. Though the uncle--purveyor of fantasy and cornball that he may be--tries to haul the kid back, the specifics of melodrama prove too strong. De Haven, as Funny Papers amply proved, is almost unequalled when it comes to low-culture re-creation; this period-piece feels gorgeously genuine, like something a soap-powder or headache medicine might have sponsored at 7:30 P.M. The other two pieces are comparative letdowns. ""He's All Mine"" is the gum-snapping, around-the-block confessions of a former girl-group star--now, at age 40, turned real-estate entrepreneur in gentrifying Jersey City. Her memories of Shangri-La-like fame are engaging, but all De Haven seems to want to do is get the voice down right. (He does--but gives it nothing at all to do.) And ""Where We'll Never Grow Old"" is De Haven back in his old Freaks' Amour-mode: the year is 2037, post-apocalypse, the average survivor either a kind of communal hobo or what's called a dog-boy, gone feral completely. Along with that, a plague known as the ""rose"" threatens all. Into this material De Haven tries to inject a sentimental friendship story (plus some authorial disquisitions on storytelling), but the piece has no spine and hangs limply for all the shoring-up. Disappointing work, for the most part, from a talented writer.

Pub Date: Aug. 19, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION