HIGH IDEALS?

by James Harris ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 1978

Cosmic."" ""Heavy."" ""Weird."" If those mildewed catchwords don't turn you off pronto, you may be just the audience that this British variation on pop-fantasy comic-bookery--a pinch of Pynchon, a filch of Vonnegut--is aimed at. Master of these tepid revels is Bungdale Head, who's into Existential Architecture, Anonymous Sex, and ""heavily into angels."" His current projects, however, are interrupted when his weird Aunt Cordelia comes back from America with this positively cosmic guy, Professor Kirby, who has made a deal with a sort-of-ghost to support Phantom Radio (broadcasts from beyond the grave) in exchange for the rights to ""Samba Serenade,"" the guitar song that Kirby's been trying to compose all his life. Everything here that isn't ""heavy"" is ""terminal,"" and everyone comes together--so to speak--at the Mansion of High Ideals, the home of the APCD (""Anti-preconception device""). As Bungdale says, ""Good Lord! I mean, shit. Really. Christ! Zounds! Et-fuckin'-cetera!!! Jesus, excuse me, I'm feeling fantastically inarticulate."" You don't say.

Pub Date: April 3, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION