Wildcatting

This first novel about four generations of a Texas oil family both fascinates and frustrates. On page one, a nameless 25-year-old narrator tantalizes the reader with allusions to madness, emotional injuries ``too horrible to speak of'' and a charismatic grandfather, Hiram Jameson, whose death she feels responsible for. But almost immediately this intriguing narrative voice dissolves, and the tale develops as a detached third-person chronicle of an extended family's history sprinkled with Southwestern mythology. The plot is too episodic and the characters too detached to convey the sense of connection and consequence necessary for a multigenerational saga. Fortunately, in the second half of the book Nix begins to dramatize the Jamesons' destructive relationships instead of making elliptical references to them. A family squabble over land and oil rights brews; the characters, who previously seemed to lead isolated, dreamlike lives, begin to take actions that affect one another. Nix's often hallucinatory prose will likely be compared to magic realism, but only when she gives substance to her flashy style by using it to relate a character-driven story do we see glimpses of a powerful writer. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Apr.)