(2 of 7)
The novel is conventional in form, despite Percy's suspicion that "there is a disintegration of the fabric of the modern world which is so far advanced that the conventional novel no longer makes sense." But his vision of rotting fabric broods over the novel. The hero, a likable, intelligent stockbroker surrounded from horizon to horizon by the quietest of despairs, expresses his predicament with irony: "It is a pleasure to carry out the duties of a citizen and to receive in return a receipt on a neat styrene card with one's name on it certifying, so to speak, one's right to exist. What satisfaction I take in appearing the first day to get my auto tag and brake sticker! I subscribe to Consumer Reports and as a consequence I own a first-class television set, an all-but-silent air conditioner and a very long-lasting deodorant. My armpits never stink. I pay attention to all spot announcements on the radio about mental health, the seven signs of cancer, and safe driving. Yesterday William Hoiden delivered a radio announcement on litterbugs. 'Let's face it,' said Holden. 'Nobody can do anything about it—but you and me.' This is true. I have been careful ever since." The Moviegoer's shortcoming is that if there is anything to say after the characters have acted out this demonstration of emptiness, Percy does not say it. The author is at work on another novel, to be called Ground Zero or The Fallout, whose hero runs Macy's air-conditioning system from a control center seven floors below street level.
David Stacton, 37, is a Nevadan who wears cowboy boots, is fond of both Zen and bourbon, and is as nearly unknown as it is possible for a writer to be who has written, and received critical praise for, 13 novels (all have been published in England, five in the US.). His books, most of which have historical themes, are masses of epigrams marinated in a stinging mixture of metaphysics and blood. Mostly they resemble themselves, but something similar might have been the result if the Due de la Rochefoucauld had written novels with plots suggested by Jack London. Stacton writes so fast that he is able to arrange his novels in "triplets"—bouquets of three related volumes—and he turns out a triplet almost every year. Among his novels published in the U.S. are On a Balcony, about Nefertiti and the Pharaoh Ikhnaton; The Judges of the Secret Court, about the events subsequent to Lincoln's assassination; and most recently, A Dancer in Darkness, a superbly gory retelling of the legend of the Duchess of Amalfi. Usually his books are brief and taut, and he is contemptuous of jumbo novels "for women who lie on sofas all day." But his best book, he feels, is a long novel about Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton. It is called Sir William, and will be published in England by Faber & Faber. Stacton's U.S. sales have been meager, and his American publisher has no present plans to issue the book.