Larry Baker’s A Good Man

Perhaps writers should never be allowed to review the work of other writers. Let’s imagine the reviewer/writer (me) has never actually scored a big-time publisher (true). Can I honestly say, as reviewer of someone who has, I wouldn’t be on the sour side of grapes?

On the other hand, where do I get off being attracted to a novel (A Good Man, Ice Cube Books, $24.95) simply because it is published in North Liberty, IA, is written by a guy named Larry Baker who lives in Iowa City and wrote a two-page letter to me, and well, his photo on the dust jacket is a ringer for my dad who was also named Larry. And did I mention Harry the hero knows what it takes to detassel corn? So do I.

What the hell. I jumped in the Cedar (Iowa) river and then into the Atlantic Ocean to immerse myself in this tale of loss and redemption, finishing the 259-pages as a full moon rose over Lake Michigan on Nov. 3. The final chapter, entitled “The Day of Election, November 4, 2008,” rang crisp and clear as the Harvest moon lit the night. How can it be a year has fled since I cast my vote for Mr. Barack Obama?

Everything in A Good Man points (some of the fingers are quite twisted) to this decisive moment in our history, and I guess this is the right place to mention that Larry Baker is also the author of Athens, America and The Flamingo Rising. When I spoke with him recently, I learned that he teaches an American History class to students at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, IA. I’ll bet no one snoozes in his class!

Was I a bitch when I couldn’t resist a “gotcha” moment and pointed out an error where the hero, Harry Ducharme, notes that a woman (purported to be an excellent cook) has her hands in crepe dough, but uh-oh, as a maker of crepes, I know the correct word is “batter”? Baker’s received some smack down over that, but it will be corrected in the second printing, “If,” he says, “there is a second printing.” Pray there will be.

I fought tooth and nail with A Good Man, initially figuring the novel was the machismo version of bad chick lit, which is to say when I was whacked in the head with this sentence, “Harry wandered north of those breasts until he leveled eyes on the barmaid’s face,” I almost shut the book and gave it an “F,” but then laughed and reminded myself that the guy did raise his eyes. So what if it was stolen clean from a funky Raymond Chandler moment?

All my angst took place prior to meeting Captain Jack Tunnel, a gasbag radio talk show host, of the thinly disguised Rush Limbaugh-type. My next reason for sticking with the tale, came in the form of Nora James, a Martha Stewart replica, and, if you discount the Virgin Mary and Tammy Faye, one of the strangest souls to grace the airwaves or the printed page. Other worldly doesn’t begin to describe Nora. Or, perhaps it does.

The cast of characters began to multiply like fishes and loaves, and soon this feast of words heated up to a weird Last Supper scenario, populated by prophets of good and evil, but which is which? Baker is a whiz at scattering speed-bump flashbacks along the way, as if to say, “I busted my balls writing this, and you damn well better slow down and pay attention.” There’s no way to speed read A Good Man. I’m just saying.

If you’re a fan of John Irving or of the late great John Updike, this one’s for you. Ditto if you dig Dickenson, Dickens, Shakespeare, Screwdrivers and Flannery O’Connor. Yes, the author’s multiple references to past writers gets a bit tedious, but that said, it is clearly his way of honoring those who came before. Wise is the writer who knows that remembering the past is a nifty way to place a story neatly in the now.

I break into a sweat when a lusty tale nears the endpoint, because the final sentence, to me at least, is crucial to great writing. Too many writers don’t know how best to bid adieu; they hang around until someone with a long, nasty hook pulls them off their literary stage.

Not Baker. Here’s his wrap: “Then, since he was moving quickly and knew that he was getting somewhere, all of his fury and fear left him.” Buy the book. Or better yet, show up at Boswell Books, located at 2559 N. Downer Ave., on Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 7 p.m. Larry Baker will be there. You betcha.

The Boswell Books event will be filmed and included in a documentary about A Good Man and the book tour. Author Larry Baker will pen the script. He will also interview Boswell Books owner Dan Goldin about the perils and pleasure of owning a bookstore.