Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock [Mass Market Paperback]

Jack Butler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1995

Narrated by the Holy Ghost, this most unusual novel tells the story of Charles and Lianne Morrison. He's a millionaire lawyer, possibly, a future governor. She's the beautiful ex-TV newscaster and former Miss Little Rock. "What begins as a soap opera and a whodunit becomes an engrossing examination of the human soul in turmoil."--Dallas Morning News.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Holy Ghost narrates Butler's colorful, dizzying story of politics, religion and marriage in Little Rock in the early '80s.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

With Arkansas in the forefront of the news, Butler's challenging tale of love, lust, and loss in Little Rock has all the ingredients of a winner. There is Lianne, a former beauty queen and television personality and her husband, Charles, a successful liberal lawyer and millionaire. There are also the members of Charles's firm: Tina, a poor girl made good; Lafayette, an African American former football star; and Greg, the token WASP. There's cocaine, a hostile sheriff, a creation science law, group therapy, and a couple of inept assassins. The whole story is narrated by the Holy Ghost in an Ozark accent. With multiple viewpoints, stream-of-consciousness narrative, and more than one demented character, this is not an easy read. But in the end, it is a highly satisfying one from a very talented Southern author ( Jujitsu for Christ , August House, 1986). Recommended for larger general collections.
- Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140237135
• ISBN-13: 978-0140237139
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,060,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book, especially if you like to think, May 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock (Mass Market Paperback)

Imagine you're a dinner guest. Your host has blindfolded you and is feeding you one bite at a time from an unseen table. Each mouthful is different and seems to follow some pattern. Some of the foods you've tasted before, but never prepared like this. It is as if you have entered another level of cusine--the food is familiar but the preparation is unique to you. In addition, just when you think you've figured out a pattern of what the stranger is going to pop in your mouth next (a lemon chocolate) you get something shockingly different(a spoonfull of cranberry sauce). This is what its like reading this tale of millionare lawyer Charles Morrison and his wife, the former Miss Little Rock as told by the most omniscient of narrators, the Holy Spirit. The foppish Kirkus Review of this book would have you believe this book was long and boring. While it may be the former, it is NEVER the latter. Infact, you don't notice the length because it is so engrossing. When you have finished this crime story/love story/psychodrama/journalistic study of political arkansas/postmodernistic novel, you'll have felt like you've lived through something intense and powerful that words can't quite describe. Perhaps like falling through a rainbow of emotions, hitting each color of the emotional spectrum as you go through; as if one had a video tape and was fast forwarding through all of the sensations one can go through in a year. I can't compare it to any book, because it is nothing like I've ever read. I've read this book three times now and it has gotten better with every reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good and Evil in Little Rock, October 9, 1999

By 

Richard E. Petty ([e-mail]) (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock (Mass Market Paperback)

I don't intend this to be a full review. There are some interesting points to make about this book. They are as much about Little Rock as about the book, but since the book has so much to do with Little Rock itself (actual and symbolic), I do not think they are out of order here.

Butler's use of Little Rock as the location for this novel makes the work exceptional. Little Rock is an extraordinary city with an extraordinary history. As a native Arkansan and former long-time Little Rock resident, I believe Little Rock to have been one of the south's most progressive cities. Some would say it was because of this progressive nature that Little Rock was chosen as the place to make the first major move to integrate public schools. Little Rock and Arkansas have fostered exceptional national leaders: William Fulbright (despite his positions on integration), Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and, yes, Bill Clinton, as well as others.

At the same time, Little Rock has been yanked violently backward by other Arkansas forces, often in the form of self-serving politicians. This often dramatic interplay between good and evil in Little Rock sets the stage for this tale which, I believe is symbolic of the south and of our nation.

The book presents so very clearly the contrasts which we allow in our world. (In a sense we allow them and in a sense we battle them, but they flourish, so I believe "allow" is apt.) Little Rock and Arkansas elected a Bill Clinton (perhaps not the best example of progressive leadership, but good enough for this argument) and they elected a legislature and another governor who voted in a creation science bill--the bill and associated trial which figure prominently in the book. Little Rock and Arkansas elected wise and thoughtful leaders such as Dale Bumpers; they also engaged in an extended flirtation with a high-profile sheriff known for chaining prisoners to the fence of a State prison, sporting a pump shotgun on television spots, and engaging in bizarre witch-hunting investigations. (This sheriff also figures prominently in the book.)

Perhaps the contrast and irony is more muted elsewhere, but in Little Rock it is vibrantly clear. Unlike the Alabama reviewer, I do think this book captures a true sense of a progressive and tragically flawed city. But then, is Little Rock all that different from the rest of the nation? Not so very different, I think. The contrast is just so much clearer in Little Rock, at

least it was at the time at which Butler set his story.

This contrast, really a balance, is so fragile. Butler plays this out over and over in the book. People with bright futures face destruction because of almost coincidental brushes with evil. This book isn't about characters who take on evil. I don't view them as taking courageous stands; they are forced to react to the evil which overtakes them. If the protagonist does have a fatal flaw, it is his obliviousness. But then, when we delightedly elect shotgun-toting, conspiracy-promoting law officers and governors ready and willing to embroil us in debates over what can and cannot be taught in schools, can we, any of us, be really very safe? Are we not ourselves oblivious to the evil which will harm us?

Many readers won't know how much of this book is very close to the news stories which appeared in Little Rock's press throughout the time of this book. Few would believe them. They're all to real. Many will attribute parts of this book to Butler's fine sense of irony--and his is as well developed as some of the greatest southern authors of the past--when those happenings are in fact drawn from pages of Arkansas newspapers. The setting of Little Rock was perfect for this book. No other city or time could have worked for this story. Happy (or unhappy) accident? Of course not, but this book works just as much because of the truth of the events depicted as because of the author's skill--and he is quite

skilled.

This book is wonderful. I don't know whether Butler considers it to be a cautionary tale, but I certainly do. It has the tragedy of opera and the plot of a saga of the past--and more of it is real life than most will ever imagine.

Now, a few final points: this book must be read aloud, preferably by a southerner (I don't think anyone will really "get" the narration of the Holy Ghost otherwise); I loved the author's pool-playing visit with the protagonist, as well as his encounter with the canine ghost; Butler's depictions of physical Little Rock and its people are great; and who, really, is the farting therapist?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be a classic, August 2, 2009

By 

alec clayton (olympia, wa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock (Mass Market Paperback)

I first read Jack Butler's "Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock" in the early '90s and re-read it in 2008. And I look forward to reading it again in 2020 if I live that long. It's now out of print, but used copies are available. It should be reprinted and read by everyone who loves contemporary literature. There is genius at work in this big book of Southern politics, love and mystery set in Arkansas in the years when the Clintons were first coming into power. The Holy Ghost narrator was a brilliant idea, and I loved the way Butler inserted himself as a character while criticizing authors for doing just that. It's a big book in more ways than one.