A WOMAN NAMED DROWN

by Padgett Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1987

Powell (Edisto, 1984) here taps into ""the continuum of nuttiness"" that seems to define the modern South, and comes up with an oddball existential-quest narrative that reads like punch-drunk Walker Percy and resonates with the same ""improbable wild hope."" The nameless narrator of this ""little downside sabbatical"" quits his Ph.D. research in chemistry, in Knoxville, Tenn., after his girlfriend of six years dumps him for a short (5'3"") crystallographer from Brooklyn. When his ""plunge"" begins, he finds himself ""completely comfortable being completely out of control."" His goofy ""lab notes of life"" soon become ""hang-over notes"" as he follows a trail of unremitting weirdness, a trail lubricated by not a little alcohol. In search of a ""no-question, no-lies ambiance,"" he sews tents for a while and hangs out at Bilbo's, a bar frequented by boxing-world lowlife. From there, he takes to the road with Mary Constance Baker, the ""Woman"" of the title, who's a widow and actor in local theater and old enough to be his mother. While he mixes gin and tonics in the back seat, they barrel down south in her vintage Mercury to a ""different kind of Florida."" When she gives him his walking-papers, he trades in her husband's pastel-colored golf clothes for the khakis he wears while working at the ""fishless fish camp"" of another fine woman named Wallace. Dart-throwing replaces pool-playing, and beer becomes the beverage of choice. But ""the plottable slope of fate defining"" his errant life leads him to his old friend Tom, now a respectable husband, and then to his family manse in Louisiana, where his once socially concerned mother is now a ""tour de force of mindlessness."" The wayward scientist, having realized his ""anti-actualization quotient"" and returned to his lab in Knoxville, looks back on this ""self-directed drama"" and knows it ""had necessity, was not random, was not lunatic."" ""People are hungry for new utterance,"" this wise little novel proclaims, and Powell feeds them well--a deep-fried bit of genius that's not for your average brie-eater.

Pub Date: May 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION