Prologue
THE CALL
Chapter 1 In Which the Hero Is Introduced and Receives a Blow
Chapter 2 Which Treats of the Strange Message the Hero's Father
Sent Him
Chapter 3 Of a Misunderstanding between Our Hero and His
Neighbors
Chapter 4 How Raleigh Received His Name
Chapter 5 In Which Raleigh Blackmails an Enemy and Frightens the
Kaiser
Chapter 6 Of the Advice Given Raleigh by His Only Sane Aunt
Chapter 7 In Which the Hero Commits a Crime
Chapter 8 And Is Nearly Arrested
Chapter 9 The First Sally Takes a Strange Turn
Chapter 10 How Raleigh Was Confirmed in His View of the World
THE QUEST
Chapter 11 In Which Our Hero Attends a Surprise Party
Chapter 12 Raleigh Escapes
Chapter 13 Wherein Is Continued the Account of the Innumerable
Troubles Endured by Our Hero
Chapter 14 Sudden Impulses Overwhelm Our Hero
Chapter 15 In Which Is Continued a Conversation Begun Thirty Years
Ago
Chapter 16 In Which Raleigh and Mingo Fall into a Swamp
Chapter 17 Raleigh's Confession
Chapter 18 How Mingo Fared Alone at Myrtle Beach
Chapter 19 In Which the Hero Finds Himself at Sea
Chapter 20 The Great Adventure of the Bass Fiddle Case -
Chapter 21 In Which Is Described the Famous Barbecue at "Wild
Oaks"
Chapter 22 Our Hero Succumbs to a Faded Beauty
Chapter 23 The Very Extraordinary Adventures Which Ensued at the
Inn
Chapter 24 In Which Are Continued the Misfortunes That
Michael Malone is the author of ten novels, a collection of short stories and two works of nonfiction. Educated at Carolina and at Harvard, he is now a professor in Theater Studies at Duke University. Among his prizes are the Edgar, the O. Henry, the Writers Guild Award, and the Emmy. He lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with his wife.
Demonstrating a spirited grasp of the genre, Malone (Dingley Falls has written a ``romance novel'' in the original sense: a long tale of chivalrous heroes and extraordinary events. This madcap book bubbles with a frenzy from the first pages, an initially disconcerting pace that rarely allows the reader to catch a breath. With a wink to Cervantes and Dickensas well as the Marx Brothersthe narrative recounts the two-week odyssey of Raleigh Whittier Hayes, an upstanding citizen of Thermopylae, N.C., and Mingo Sheffield, his Sancho Panza. They encounter a bizarre cast of characters during their adventures, including Raleigh's criminal half-brother Gates, his prison buddy Weeper Berg, and aging jazzman Toutant Kingstree. Their quest, to unfairly simplify it, is to recapture Hayes's ailing father, who has escaped from the hospital with a young black woman, and who has left Raleigh a strange set of tasks to fulfill before a planned rendezvous in New Orleans. While tantalized by the promise of a secret treasure at the end of the journey, Hayes uncovers family secrets and Raleigh is granted a large measure of self-enlightenment. This is a highly refreshing tale in which Malone has managed to make the bizarre hilariously credible. 75,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo. (April)
With braggadocio, Malone says in his acknowledgments that he expects a major movie company to buy Handling Sin. And his novel's scenario does seem designed to outdo Cannonball Run , Peyton Place and, at times, Porky's. It stars Raleigh W. Hayes, Baptist Church stalwart, Civitan regular, staid insurance agent, who miraculously metamorphoses overnight into Bruce Lee/Rocky/Rambo as he totes a pistol, battles the KKK and the other gangsters, poses as an FBI agent, and shades of Mickey Spillainehas sensuous women swooning as he travels from Thermopylae, N.C. to New Orleans with excessively contrived adventures. This episodic novel panders with explicit sexual encounters, manipulated incidents/coincidences, and flagrant reliance on deus ex machina. But, alas, there is little reading pleasure in it. Glenn O. Carey, English Dept., Eastern Kentucky Univ., Richmond
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