THE REMARKABLE ANDREW

Entertaining -- with a controversial bite -- but a thinnish story, this new novel from the author of Johnny Got His Gun. There's a distant resemblance to The Devil and Daniel Webster, though this is a story of a modern book-keeper, who is aided towards his ambition by the ghostly visitations of Andrew Jackson. With a debunking of cliche formes of current thought, and a fundamental sort of patriotism, the story traces young Andrew's fight to keep his town's books scrupulously honest. His ghostly visitant brings him a bad reputation -- he almost loses his girl -- but his court trial is won through the aid of the spirit of Jackson, and other notable patriots, and he is suitably rewarded. An unusual way to focus on contrasts in points of view of the past and the present. An original job.