Lightning Song
Every time lightning strikes in Lewis Nordan's novel, strange  things happen. Lightning strikes, and an old man dies; lightning strikes again  and he comes back to life; love affairs begin and end amid the perilous  crackle of electrical storms. Young Leroy Dearman inhabits a flat,  Mississippi landscape punctuated by singing llamas, wild dogs, and his own  eccentric family members: a grandfather who drinks poison, a mother  obsessed with the kidnapped Italian politician Aldo Moro, an uncle who  seduces his mother, and a father infatuated with an Indian maiden. Leroy  himself is tortured by erotic fantasies involving a buxom high school baton  twirler. His torment is hardly eased when he discovers his uncle's cache of  skin magazines.  When the baton-twirling Circe finally makes Leroy's  dreams come true lightning strikes.All of this could become  a cartoon version of rural Southern life in the  hands of a less accomplished writer. But Lewis Nordan hits all the right  notes inLightning Song, delving beneath surface eccentricity to  expose the loneliness, the confusion, and the longing for love that dwell in  the heart of every character. Funny and sad, its atmosphere as emotionally  charged as the air just before a thunderstorm,Lightning Songis a  rare and wonderful read.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.