THE SELF STARTING WHEEL
By
Related to, but by no means dependent on, Best Seller (1957-Harcourt, Brace) this is again obstreperous and even further out in recording the second coming of Max Daniels, whom Tim Haggard (he tells the story), Nick, a painter, and Walter had known in the earlier book- three years before. In the time between, Tim has become a successful slick magazine man, and his marriage to Grace has disintegrated. Max, with his limitless capacity for the bizarre, his ""cosmic"" jokes, his magnetism, energy, and chaos, returns from the ""wilderness"" where he's been formulating a philosophy of relativity- his catechism. His agent will not touch it- neither will Tim's magazine- which is featuring another evangelist, the Reverend Passmore with his ""Joy-Thinking""-so that it is mostly a listening audience that he attracts before he stages his crucifixion (not his own, as feared, but the Reverend's) -- with Grace in the role of Mary and Tim as his Judas....The significance here (and any attempt to identify- or identify with-its manic messiah) is smudged by the satire-but there are some sharp and stinging individual scenes (i.e. Grace in her off-Broadway play- The Subway) as well as a certain undertow.