THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407010405
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
THE PATRON SAINT OF UNMARRIED WOMEN
KARL ACKERMAN
St. Martin's Press. 246 pp. $20.95.
AFTER THREE YEARS, four months and 10 days, Nina Lawrence ends her engagement to Jack Townsend in Karl Ackerman's romantic first novel, The Patron Saint of Unmarried Women. Jack is devastated, but he refuses to give up: ``Reason tells me to let Nina go, but my heart says baloney to that, and for once I am certain that my heart is right.''
Ackerman's novel overflows with appealing characters. Nina's mother, Marie, matriarch of a large Catholic family, wants Jack to marry her daughter. She finds excuses to lure him to her house, where she and her other offspring give unwanted advice and tell Jack more than he wants to know about Nina's new love interest.
Nina's family members aren't the only ones who meddle. Jack's sister introduces him to a woman he finds attractive at first. But when she insists that he attend a meeting about introspection - ``It's about enhancing the quality of our relationships. And caring. . . It's really thought-provoking. Uplifting. Lots of food for thought, I promise.'' - Jack rapidly loses interest.
Throughout the novel, Ackerman, who lives in Charlottesville, slyly pokes fun at lawyers, self-important Washington politicians, and people who engage in psychobabble. In contrast, he portrays Jack, a landscape architect and opera lover, as a charming lovelorn hero.
- SHIRLEY PRESBERG
UNDER A HOODOO MOON
The Life of Dr. John the Night Tripper
DR. JOHN (Mac Rebennack) WITH JACK RUMMEL
St. Martin's Press. 264 pp. $19.95.
SIX YEARS AGO, Dr. John and Harry Connick Jr. recorded ``Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?'' for Connick's album, ``20.'' The collaboration was akin to another New Orleans connection, one made three decades earlier, between the great Professor Longhair and a teenage Mac Rebennack, later known as Dr. John.
The question, though, was rhetorical.
Under a Hoodoo Moon makes clear that no one misses New Orleans more than Rebennack. The city - its mysticism as much as its music - and the man, who in 1967 adopted the guise of a 19th century root doctor, are inseparable.
All of which makes Hoodoo Moon (Rebennack calls it a ``little book of rememberations'') as rich and filling as gumbo. Rebennack published his first song before he dropped out of high school and honed his chops in the city's long-gone strip joints and all-night jams. His career has included associations with Doc Pomus, Little Richard, Mick Jagger, and Sonny and Cher.
Rebennack's book is a lively, mystical and sometimes scary trip, one peopled by hustlers, reverend mothers and dope fiends, himself included. He is candid about a 34-year heroin habit that he finally kicked five years ago. During one deal, he almost had a finger severed by a gunshot.
When Rebennack writes that the survival rate from all this craziness isn't high, it's from experience. This is the real deal.
- CRAIG SHAPIRO by CNB