Going to See the Elephant

Fishburne’s zany and entertaining, if somewhat uneven, first novel tells the story of Slater Brown: Writer Extraordinaire (at least in his own mind), as he whimsically romps through San Francisco. Slater arrives in the city with little more than the clothes on his back and a 250-pound trunk of books. He soon finds himself employed at a down and out newspaper called the Morning Trumpet , where, with the aid of a mystic known as Answer Man and a corrupt-beyond-belief mayoral administration, Slater becomes the journalistic toast of the town. Add a beautiful chess champion as romantic interest and a genius inventor intent on manipulating the weather, and you have the recipe for a generous and whacky story in the tradition of Tom Robbins. At times Fishburne has trouble maintaining so many moving parts; the inventor story line can feel extraneous, and the love story takes a while to get going. But what saves the book is its sweetness and innocence, and the depiction of Slater in the big city is a pleasure. (Jan.)