Thirteen Albatrosses: (or Falling Off the Mountain) [Paperback]

Donald Harington (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2002

The most rollicking and guiltlessly entertaining political novel in years

For decades Donald Harington has delighted fans with his thrilling, magical tales of Stay More, a small enclave in northern Arkansas. Now Harington expands on his fictional realm with the strange, quixotic quest of Vernon Ingledew to win the governorship of Arkansas. Ingledew, a polymath of surreal properties, is soon hampered by what his opponents refer to as his "Thirteen Albatrosses." Among them: he is an atheist; lives in sin with his first cousin; and believes in "extirpating"-that is, getting rid of-hospitals, prisons, tobacco, and handguns. Nevertheless, Ingledew attracts to his campaign some of America's heaviest political hitters. Together they form Ingledew's Seven Samurai, aides whose devotion will be tested by kidnappings, adulterous love affairs, and defection to the rival campaign of the vulgar, hated Arkansas Governor Shoat Bradfield (a Republican).

Providing readers with an education in the dizzying whirligig of contemporary politics, Thirteen Albatrosses is wickedly funny and presciently topical-entertainment of the highest order.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This uneven and somewhat disappointing 11th novel by Harington, a University of Arkansas art history professor who has become a cult figure among noted literati, resumes the whimsical and ribald history of the denizens of Stay More, a mythical backwater in the Arkansas Ozarks. Revisiting Vernon Ingledew and Vernon's first-cousin common-law wife, Jelena (from Harington's 1975 novel, The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks), the tale picks up 27 years later as Vernon, now 48 and wealthy from his Ingledew Ham business, decides to run for governor. Among his albatrosses are his atheism, his relationship with Jelena and the fact that he wants to do away with hospitals and handguns. With virtually unlimited financial resources, Vernon sets out to win the election by assembling the Seven Samurai, a group of top political professionals recruited from a team that masterminded fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton's move to the White House. The outlandish cast includes a sexy Osage Indian millionairess and her gay seven-foot chauffeur, who has the hots for Vernon's aging factotum, George Dinsmore. Thrown into the mix are some real-life figures (U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers and Tyson Foods exec Archie Schaffer), and the author himself makes some intrusive cameo appearances. Striving too hard to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, much of the novel's first half wallows around in a mire of boorish references to the author's earlier novels, interlaced with clumsy drivel about the characters and the Ozarks. Happily, however, the second half steers back toward its satiric mark, acquiring the momentum of expert storytelling and showing flashes of vintage Harington. (Apr. 1)Forecast: Perennially underappreciated, Harington deserves to break out. Chances are, however, that this novel won't do the trick, despite the promising Clinton spoof and political hijinks (and a striking red, white and blue jacket).
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Harington (art history, Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville) here continues his long-running series about his mythic place in the Ozarks, the village of Stay More. This time, he tracks the gubernatorial campaign of Vernon Ingledew, whose 13 campaign killers his atheism, lack of college education, relationship with his first cousin, and so forth have been uncovered by the opposition. Side by side with the real issues of a modern political campaign are such delightful rambles as an examination of whether one person can love two people equally at the same time (with attendant sexual frolicking) and discourses into the history of the Osage people (with attendant mythology). Readers who love to return to special corners of the world and really get to know the folks should be thrilled to meet Harington and the characters at Stay More. Harington is a wry, playful novelist who tweaks reality by invoking allegory and making appearances in this novel. Most public libraries, especially those with a bent for local history and its eccentricities, will want not only this newest work but also the backlist. Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805068554
• ISBN-13: 978-0805068559
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,731,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Donald Harington was one of America's greatest writers of fiction. His fifteen novels have been called jubilant, lyrical, foxy, captivating, delicate, bawdy, playful, reckless, joyful, courageous. Set in the fictional hamlet of Stay More, Arkansas, Harington's stories blend myth, dreamscape and sharply observed speech and manners to depict a rich, eccentric, rural society. All fifteen novels--from the classic Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, to the redemptive Choiring of the Trees, the love story With and the concluding novel Enduring, published just two months before Mr. Harington's death-- are now available as The Complete Novels of Donald Harington, a must-have collection for all those who wish to read the very best, authentic, contemporary American writing.

"The quirkiest, most original body of work in contemporary US letters." -Boston Globe

"Harington is hooked into the deepest traditions of storytelling, dipping his buckets directly into the well it all comes from, pursuing a literature dedicated not to documentation or self-expression, but to fascination, to lifting us out of ourselves and the dailiness of our lives -- to making our world again wondrous and large." --Los Angeles Times

"Totally satisfying... Harington reveres the most ordinary aspects of the lives of unexceptional people...he makes his joy infectious." --Time Magazine

Donald Harington (1935 -2009) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and spent nearly all of his childhood summers in the Ozark mountain hamlet of Drakes Creek, his mother's hometown, where his grandparents operated the general store and post office. There, before he lost his hearing to meningitis at the age of twelve, he listened carefully to the vanishing Ozark dialect and the old tales told by local storytellers. He published his first novel in 1965, and fourteen more for a total of fifteen, most of them set in the Ozark hamlet of his own creation, Stay More, loosely based on Drakes Creek. Acclaimed by critics as "an undiscovered continent," "America's Chaucer," and "one of the most powerful, subtle and inventive novelists in America," Harington was the recipient of the Robert Penn Warren Award, the Porter Prize, the Heasley Prize, and the Oxford American Lifetime Achievement Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great novel from AR and America's finest writer, April 1, 2002

By 

Gary L. Phillips "Gary Phillips" (Blytheville, AR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thirteen Albatrosses: (or Falling Off the Mountain) (Paperback)

A new novel from Donald Harington is always a cause for celebration. But 13 Albatrosses is even better than we deserve. Full of vivid characterizations and his trademark rollicking, ribald humor, this new novel should be necessary reading for anyone who can read.

The best novel to come out of Arkansas in many years, 13 Albatrosses should win Donald Harington a legion of new fans.

And be sure to check out his earlier work. You won't be disappointed.

4.0 out of 5 stars Another winner, May 25, 2009

By 

audreydog (Arkansas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Thirteen Albatrosses: (or, Falling Off the Mountain) (Paperback)

This book carries on the Harington Stay More saga and depicts one of the strangest elections ever held. Quite funny and satirical at the same time. I've read this one twice, and will probably pull it off the shelf again at some point.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great election satire, November 8, 2008

By 

Laura Best (Rolla, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thirteen Albatrosses: (or, Falling Off the Mountain) (Paperback)

There are two types of Harington stories that I love. One is the beautiful epic love story/family saga wrapped in his classic sad and humorous storytelling. The other is the falling-in-the-floor-laughing-until-your-husband-tells-you-to-shut-up-he's-trying-to-sleep-and-who-stays-up-until-3-am-laughing-at-a-novel-anyway type of story. I don't get why this novel was disappointing. I thought it was hilarious. Being from the Missouri Ozarks (us darn northerners), I found the political intrigue very real. I also found the idea of "hillbillies" trying to use modern political weapons and the moral implications of that very timely. I think of this novel and laugh and shake my head after almost every election cycle. This novel and Al Franken's "Why Not Me?" continue to be relevant and funny when it comes to modern American politics. Highly recommend you read this and laugh.