Customer Reviews

Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock

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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.

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?

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.

This book takes the six guitar strings that travel the length of your torso. Then it alternately plays on the fretboard of your intellect, strums your heart, and grabs your whammy bar.

Buy a copy for yourself. Then buy one for everyone you know who doesn't believe in the transformative powers of fiction; everyone you know who believes the novel is dead; and anyone who needs to have the focus of their worldview adjusted to sharpen the magic and blur the ordinary.

The other reviews on this page are well-put, but this novel is much more than regional work or a humorous look at the early 80s. What's it about? Everything. Mysticism, sex, and death. And it's hilarious. Because things are funny in direct proportion to their gravity. I can never teach a class on the American Novel again without somehow dealing with this book, and the sooner it's back in print, the better.

LLR (to use the author's own shorthand) is a book to be reread. It bursts with linguistic and literary trickery: a Finnegan's Wake for this generation. It swoops between characters and narrative devices with virtuousity, and leaves memory trails long after you have finished. Make no mistake, this is a difficult book to read. However since when does difficulty have anything to do with artistic merit, and this is a work of art. It evokes a now distant past of unforgotten history, though we may not wish to recall some of it. The Morrisons' are upwardly mobile, enlightened liberals (a dirty word now) who are targetted by all manner of evils. You should discover the plot yourself and in doing so discover perhaps the most talented of current writers: a Burgess like love of language; A Joycean eye for invention. Each character is complete, believable, and has their own voice: Lianne's stilted thought process; Laugh's self awareness; even the dog. Embedded in this murderous plot are sacred homilies: "...he could have touched if touch was touch was all...", touching personlities and a sense of conteporaneity. This is perhaps the great American novel, something which none of the great American novellists has yet produced. And it took a poet to do it.

As a native of Little Rock, Arkansas I am always alert to novels set in my home state and especially my home town. This is easily one of the finest novels ever set or written in the state and easily the finest set in Little Rock.

The historical context for this novel is important. It was published at a time when Bill Clinton was entering the White House, but the setting for the novel was over a decade earlier, during the two year period when Clinton had been defeated in the governor's race by the widely ridiculed Frank White. The latter became governor largely because Clinton had raised the fees for license plates and because the state had some difficulty dealing with his then-feminist wife Hillary (she was still progressive politically back then, instead of the right-leaning senator she is today--and anyone who thinks Hillary is a liberal is focusing on the right-wing hype and ignoring the realities of her actual positions on the issues). White achieved eternal notoriety in the state when he blithely signed into the law allowing the teaching of creationism in public schools, which resulted in the most famous trial since Scopes regarding evolution and the Bible. (A popular item in the state at the time was a Frank White doll holding a banana.) It was an interesting period. Pulaski County sheriff Tommy Robinson was outraging many citizens and delighting others with his "Walking Tall" antics, such as chaining prisoners to trees when the jails got overcrowded. Robinson, who is pilloried in this novel by another county sheriff, went on to become a profoundly undistinguished one-term congressman who got caught up in the House post office scandal. Arkansas guard U. S. Reed really did hit a half court shot as time expired to fuel a victory for the Razorbacks. And there was a very famous murder and investigation of a Little Rock millionaire who was charged with murdering his wife. Charles Morrison, the protagonist of this novel, is loosely based on that incident (a murder that has been covered in several of the television tabloid series). What emerges is a highly evocative and compelling portrait of the city immediately before it began to emerge into the national spotlight.

I love the narrative device that holds the novel together. Many novels, of course, feature omniscient narrators, though rarely is the legitimacy of this technique established. Here, however, Butler lays claim to the ultimate omniscient narrator, for the story is told by none other than the Holy Ghost. This is typical of the way loves to play with one's expectations throughout the novel.

Like a lot of Arkansas novelists (I think of Charles Portis here as well), Butler is a subtly funny writer. Maybe living in the reason necessitates a sense of humor. The book is filled with wonderfully grotesque characters and utterly unexpected twists. It is just an enormously entertaining book. I must confess to owning four copies of the book--a galley proof that I read before it was originally published, a pristine hardback first edition, a second hardback first edition that I lend to friends, and a curious British paperback edition that features a rather surreal cover. On the latter there are cactuses in the background of the cover painting, leading me to wonder if the British book designer somehow or other confused Arkansas and Arizona. I can state with no fear of contradiction that cacti form no part of the flora of Arkansas. As for my lender copy, I've allowed a number of my friends to read the book, and all have responded with great delight.

However, as a longtime Cub fan, I do have a minor bone to pick. In the spring of 1981 (the time when the novel was set) Harry Caray was not the announcer for the Cubs: he was still with the White Sox. The Cubs were sold to the Trib and in the fall of 1981 Harry was hired as the voice of the Cubs. The rest is, as they say, history.

It is truly awful that this novel is out of print. It is definitely worth searching out. Unless some publisher has the good sense to reprint it, I think this is going to be one of those novels that generates its own little fan club, whose members pass on the knowledge of the book to other deserving souls. I confess that I find it painful that a fine book like this is allowed to go out of print while a neverending stream of junk novels stay in print. Please do yourself a favor and pick this one up and read it. You will be glad that you did.

Don't have the time for a long, ponderous review here. I did review this book for the SF Chronicle when it was first published (what, nearly 20 years ago?), and it has stuck with me ever since, and I just now wandered over here to see what people were saying, and I saw that two-star review and I think it's a crime. This is a fantastic book. I have no connection to LIttle Rock, but I loved this book. Some of the phrases -- the specific wording of certain phrases! -- still stick in my head all these years later.

I read this book in mid-1993, at a time when I was living in Alabama and was sorely missing my childhood homeland of Arkansas. While Jack Butler's portrait of early-Eighties Little Rock did touch a few nostalgic chords with me (the murder plots, toga parties, and law enforcement intrigues are heavily grounded in real events), I found his style to be extremely pretentious and exhausting. Little Rock book clubs and socialites might titter over Butler's gossipy prose, but I'm afraid they represent the scope of his audience. Perhaps that was his intent.

As I read this book, it occurred to me that this was nothing more than a self-absorbed attempt to cash in (literarily) on Little Rock's newfound fame in the wake of Bill Clinton's election in 1992. The then-ex-governor makes no real appearance in the book (other than a sidelong glance at a party), but his later rise to power seems to color the story. The true victim of Butler's pointless prose, aside from the reader ! who commits time to reading it, is the City of Little Rock, which ends the book as ill-defined and unremarkable as it was in the first line. Butler makes no attempt at defining the city's multi-faceted character, as Wolfe did for New York in Bonfire of the Vanities. Butler simply assumes that the reader cares because Little Rock is The City Where Bill Clinton is From. Unfortunately, without the city as a character in the plot, I was left with a tedious story about only mildly interesting characters who could just as well have lived, loved, and died in Dallas Texas or Juneau, Alaska.

I have not read any of Jack Butler's other works, but I am willing to give him another chance. I had high hopes for this one, but it did nothing to ease my exile in Alabama.