ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996                 TAG: 9604230070
SECTION: BOOKS                    PAGE: 4    EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: BOOK REVIEW 
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY R.H.W. DILLARD 

BOOKMARKS

THE KING OF BABYLON SHALL NOT COME AGAINST YOU. By George Garrett. Harcourt Brace. $24.

In the fall of 1958, I had the good fortune to get to know Katherine Anne Porter when she was Writer in Residence at the University of Virginia. I asked her what younger American writers I should read, and she replied without hesitation, "Read George Garrett. He's the best of them all." I took her advice then and have continued to take it ever since. I was delighted when Harcourt Brace sent me an advance copy of his new novel, his eighth, for a comment. Here is what I said (and I still mean every word of it): In 1968, a chaos invaded American life with such fury that it still has not abated and often seems, in fact, a permanent condition. Garrett examines that chaos in this extraordinary novel with the daring and precision of a physicist and, at the same time, with the tragicomic vision of the Shakespeare who wrote the dark comedy, "Measure for Measure." The novel, "The King of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You," is a contemporary Jeremiad, a slapstick eulogy for American innocence, and a complex and serious quest for sense in a web of nonsense and contradiction. It will enlighten even those whom it offends, and offend even those whom it enlightens. Only a talent as capacious and profound as Garrett's could have produced such an astonishing book. Those still in search of a great American novel need look no further.

Garrett has taught writing at Hollins College and is currently the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. He will be reading from "The King of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You" in the Green Drawing Room at Hollins on Thursday at 8:15 p.m. The public is invited.

R.H.W. Dillard, a poet and novelist, is the author of the critical study

"Understanding George Garrett."

John Gregory Brown, whose latest novel, "The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton LaFleur," was recently reviewed on this page, will sign books at Ram's Head Book Shop at Towers Mall on Saturday from 1-3 p.m.

LENGTH: Short :   46 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  (headshot) Garrett.