BLACK JACK

A villainous giant who clogs his throat to fool the Tyburn hangman, Black Jack ""wakes"" in the house of Mrs. Gorgandy, a professional widow who disposes of her poor husbands' bodies to the highest (medical) bidder. Forcing Bartholomew Dorking (!), Mrs. Gorgandy's unwitting corpse-sitter, to flee with him, Black Jack starts on a trail of vintage eighteenth century vagabondage filled with the excessive characters and outlandish situations that Garfield knows best. ""Tolly"" is a timorous soul but he has the where-withal to find in Belle, the ""poor thing"" escaped from a one-way trip to the madhouse, a staunch tenderness and fine wit. That makes this kind of a love story but the tone is so unlike conventional romance that even confirmed misogynists won't realize they're being roped in. The scenes are filled with gutsy types and behind them all are the revivalistic, judgmental predictions for April 5 (incidentally, the English income tax deadline). Remarkably fluent, with much to say (implicitly) about madness, even more about impulsive gestures, all in period idioms. A Fieldingesque funhouse.