The White Widow

December 30, 1996
This 10th novel from renowned anchorman Lehrer (The Last Debate; The Sooner Spy) trades journalism and Washington politics for the flat highways of 1950s Texas, where Jack T. "On Time" Oliver drives a Trailways bus between Houston and Corpus Christi-until his overactive imagination begins to shake his simple world apart. Lehrer fills this wistful tale with interesting details of bus line procedures and legends, the most central being the eponymous "White Widow," every bus driver's ultimate dream woman who comes aboard and changes his life. Jack is weeks away from receiving the honorary gold badge of the "master operator," recognizing his seniority and high level of service, when he meets his White Widow, a beautiful Ava Gardner look-alike who rides his bus on Fridays. Although they've exchanged only a few words, Jack begins to concoct love fantasies, losing his concentration as he longs for each Friday's run. His driving begins to suffer, and his wife suspects him of cheating. One stormy Friday, with "Ava" riding across from him in the "angel seat," the consequences of his obsession become dire and irreversible. Lehrer convincingly uses bus driver lore, drawing on memories of his college job as a ticket agent. His delicate portrayal of Jack's life and inner thoughts heightens the story's poignancy. With its tragic elements, simple narrative and strong undercurrent of myth, Lehrer's tale lingers in memory like a sorrowful ghost story.

October 15, 1996
Every week, Jack T. "On Time" Oliver drives his bus round trip from Houston to Corpus Christi and back. Now, in the late 1950s, he is about to receive his reward for faithful service, promotion to "master operator." He cherishes the uniform he wears and is proud of the slimness of his profile since he lost 70 pounds. He is married to the first and only woman he ever dated. Then a beautiful woman, a "white widow" in bus driver jargon, climbs aboard his bus one Friday, en route to the end of the line. In his thoughts, he names her "Ava," after actress Ava Gardner. Images of her confuse and obsess him; he dreams of a life he will never know. His distraction leads to disaster, exposing the fragility of his hold on happiness. PBS news anchor Lehrer (The Last Debate, LJ 8/95) has crafted an affecting story of a man who has anesthetized himself against the emptiness of his life but can do so no longer. Recommended for public libraries.--David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus

October 1, 1996
The PBS news anchor constructs a simple but successful tale of a bus driver led into temptation. One day in 1956, the temptress, a type the drivers call a "white widow" --a desirable but unwinnable woman--boards Jack Oliver's Houston to Corpus Christi route. Jack, an uncomplicated fellow, moons over the woman, who continues to ride the bus every Friday. Though largely inert as a character, she becomes a fantasy figure to the smitten Jack, who calls her his "Ava" (as in Gardner). Just as Jack reaches the apex of his career, earning the golden badge of Master Operator, disaster strikes. On his next run, the newly elevated Master Operator, uniform creased and badge polished, picks up Ava, loses his concentration thinking about her, and runs over two people in a rainstorm. Jack panics, lies, is fired, leaves his wife, and starts over in a new town with a new bus line. Readers are left with a banal moral about the perils of lust. Still, Lehrer makes good use of the two-lane, roadside-shack look of south Texas in the '50s, and his fans (built up through 10 novels and nightly TV) will respond to the pathos of working-class Jack's ill fate. ((Reviewed Oct. 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)