THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606030213
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ANN EGERTON
LENGTH: 70 lines
THE KING OF BABYLON SHALL NOT COME AGAINST YOU
GEORGE GARRETT
Harcourt Brace. 336 pp. $24.
In a broad and comic atmosphere that is sometimes reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio or more recently, of John Irving's Hotel New Hampshire, Virginia novelist George Garrett compares two murders and an apparent suicide in a small town in Florida to the assassination of Martin Luther King - all of which occurred the same day in April 1968 - and asks, are these horrors random or do they have a pattern?
Billy Tone, an investigative reporter with a checkered past, tries to make sense of the deaths in the context of the times. The (too) large cast of characters in Paradise Springs, Fla., where the more anonymous and personal crimes took place, is almost ridiculously grotesque. It includes an evangelist midget and his enormous common-law wife, an ex-sheriff, a former nude model, a philosopher father and his scheming son, a tormented Episcopal minister and his wicked daughter, a hugely successful black attorney, and a professor turned pornographer.
Garrett writes entertaining portraits of most of these people, and his characters and often his dialogue are funny. But the book - its message - is not funny at all. Garrett is deadly serious as he examines the events of 1968 and their lasting consequences.
One man, Jack Weatherby, observes, ``I recognize that we are in the middle of a race war, right here and now in this country,'' and describes black crime (which he says is 47 percent of the violent crime committed in this nation), as well as mostly black juries that let black criminals off. He admits to being happy the day that King was killed (also the day of his daughter's death), but now thinks it was a great loss:
``Things got a lot worse after he was gone . . . maybe, because he had sense and could count, we wouldn't have the race war we are fixing to have now, sooner or later.'' Weatherby indicts integration and affirmative action with a cold, controlled - and effective - fury.
Says another character: ``We are rapidly turning into a nation and a people without any real and serious principles . . . led by a president who suits us (we deserve him) perfectly.''
Interspersed with the sad social commentary are recollections of the events in Paradise Springs in April 1968. They are given from many points of view, much in the style of William Faulkner, but they often have a slant of black humor to them. Just as you settle back for more recollections of outrageous events, one of the characters slams home a chilling observation on our country, such as ``by constant and regular exposure to the worst the world has to offer, we have become hardened and almost immune to atrocity . . . Although we do profess our generous compassion, we have . . . next to none for any pains and suffering beyond our own . . . Join this condition with our indifference to the prevalence of vulgarity in all its shapes and forms, and you will have some sense of who we really are.''
Who can deny that this is true?
Paradise Springs, where the killings and betrayals are casual, is a microcosm of the national condition. The assassination of Martin Luther King is also portrayed as casual, and its significance molded by his celebrity, and therefore dependent on perception, not reality. All of the events were emblematic of the times.
Garrett, the author of 25 books, though best known for his three Elizabethan novels, has written a remarkable novel, making judgments too painful for most of us to consider.
Mark Twain once said: ``When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained,'' George Garrett doesn't let us off the hook that easily. MEMO: Ann Egerton is a free-lance writer who lives in Baltimore. by CNB