Loose Ends

March 1, 2001
Bowers's previous book, Words for the Taking: The Hunt for a Plagiarist, chronicled his attempts to track down a man named David Jones who plagiarized a number of Bowers's poems and hoodwinked literary journals into publishing them. If only the plot for this first novel from the highly regarded poet and nonfiction writer proved as gripping. Davis Banks occupies the lowest rung of the academic ladder, toiling as an adjunct professor at a junior college in Iowa. He's also a diabetic and a compulsive liar. When his mother dies, Davis returns to Clarksville, Tenn., for the burial. There he runs into Ann Louise Wilson, a high school classmate and now a Clarksville police officer. Taking up residence in his mother's empty house, Davis delves into her life and learns--via a purse filled with condoms and cigarettes--that she wasn't the shy, retiring woman he thought. Meanwhile, the discovery of a stray corpse near the Bankses' family plot sends Ann Louise and Davis investigating a cold murder case. Throw in Davis's ping-ponging diabetes, the inevitable affair with Ann Louise, her jealous ex-husband and Davis's search for his mother's lover, and the book develops more plot lines than it can comfortably handle. Fans of Bowers's poems may find themselves gratified by the imagery, but most of them will hope that Bowers will rededicate himself to poetry.

March 1, 2001
Davis Banks, a part-time, temporary, adjunct, visiting assistant professor of literature at a junior college in the Midwest, has received news of his mother's death and is on his way to Tennessee to arrange her funeral. An amateur con man, he soon finds that his stories pale in comparison with the secrets his mother has been keeping. The first question arises when Banks realizes that he doesn't know where or how his mother died, and his efforts to find out only raise more questions, including the identity of the man in his father's grave. As he travels around Clarksville in search of answers, he meets a man who may have been his mother's lover and is reunited with an old friend from high school, now a homicide detective, who helps him uncover some facts about his mother's life and death. First novelist Bowers, the author of six books of nonfiction and poetry, has a flare for Southern dialog and an understanding of the rituals of family in the South. He has drawn Banks as a less-than-sympathetic character whom the reader still cares about even when he is self-destructive. Recommended for public libraries and libraries specializing in Southern literature. Kerie Lynn Nickel, St. Mary's Coll. of Maryland, Leonardtown

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2001
Davis Banks, an English professor at a community college, is right out there on the edge. He doesn't think much of his status, and he doesn't think much of himself, but he does think too much. An only child, Davis has come home to a small town in Tennessee for his mother's funeral. Even though insulin imbalances and weird thoughts distract him, Davis trips over unsettling loose ends about his mother, particularly the fact that she died in a motel room with a macho, married, military man. Then he finds a loose arm in the open gravesite intended for his mom, and that leads to more discoveries. The author of this arresting first novel is a poet and professor of English at Iowa State University. His poetic prose and intriguing plot provide an anxious portrait of a smart-mouthed solipsist who's trapped in thoughts, tortured by words, and determined to alienate everyone he encounters. In spite of himself, Banks is a fascinating character. Meet him in print and be glad you don 't have to meet him in person.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)