Amazon.com Review
A father's shame is explored by his son in
The King Is Dead, the third novel by Jim Lewis. Walter Selby, a decorated WW II veteran, becomes a speech writer and strategist for a prominent Tennessee politician; marries Nicole, a decade younger; and lives with all the trappings of the Southern upper-middle class, including two small children, Frank and Gail. A political debacle causes the fiercely moral Walter to resign, and he returns home early, only to find Nicole has been unfaithful. The second half of the novel follows Frank--who recalls little of his parents after his adoption--as a known, but declining, actor approached by a famous actress, Lenore, to star in her swan song.
Lewis displays considerable writing talent, such as when Frank explains to Lenore that he never talks about his real father, and "[s]he sounded surprised by the notion, and slightly incredulous, as if he'd told her that he'd never tasted orange juice, or that he'd once gone a year without sleeping." The novel is constructed to showcase Lewis's astute musings on love, sex, and death, but gives short shrift to the relationship between Frank and his ancestry. Instead, Frank's time is spent recalling his first love, Kimmie, and their sexual experiences (in vivid detail). While engaging characters abound, the plot of The King Is Dead becomes suppressed and merely strings them along. --Michael Ferch
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Every act is fraught with significance in this intermittently powerful but overwrought novel, set between 1950s Tennessee and present-day New York. Like an American passion play, Lewis's story is one of sin and redemption, told in flowing, dramatic prose. Walter Selby is an aide to the governor of Tennessee; he works as hard at his behind-the-scenes politicking as he does in wooing his wife, the lovely Nicole. Their happy life together comes to an abrupt end on the day Walter resigns from his job after tragically botching a government eviction, then comes home to find his wife with another man. The terrible crime he commits separates him forever from his six-year-old son, Frank, and baby daughter, Gail. Years later, Frank, now a successful actor, is driven to investigate his parents' past after an encounter with an eccentric elderly director who tries to persuade him to take a role in a film, the plot of which stirs strange sentiments in him ("a young Prince... is newly appointed to the throne after the death of his father, and soon discovers evidence of a taint on the palace"). Frank's muddled journey takes him to Tennessee and then deep into his family's murky history. Lewis's luminous language serves him well in the early going; his descriptions of '50s-era Tennessee and of Walter and Nicole's passionate marriage are rich and convincingly detailed. But when the story turns to abstract musings, the top-heavy sentences slip into portentousness, and the choruses of "Frank, oh, Frank" and "Oh oh oh Frank" strike an almost comical note. Lewis (Sister; Why the Tree Loves the Ax) is a talented writer, but his overblown lyricism gets the better of this ambitious novel.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
