cover image The Blue Caterpillar and Other Essays

The Blue Caterpillar and Other Essays

Samuel F. Pickering. University Press of Florida, $24.95 (229pp) ISBN 978-0-8130-1482-1

Love him or hate him, you've got to credit Pickering with honesty. ""My essays meander,"" he admits in the first of the 11 slices of life in this, his eighth collection (Trespassing). Actually, that's an understatement. Pickering's essays are like balls in a pinball machine, rolling from target to target with no apparent logic. In ""Down,"" which begins and ends with his wife's decision to pierce her ears, Pickering covers a back injury, catalogue-shopping for a Buck knife, an interview with a weak-bladdered foreign journalist and a foray into the lives of imaginary Tennesseans named Slubey, Luburl and Pearline. Those folks (minus Luburl, who dies in ""Down"") pop up throughout the essays, fictional characters without a novel to inhabit. It's disconcerting, but then, so is Pickering. A University of Connecticut English professor, he was the model for Robin Williams's character in the movie Dead Poets Society. A family man who rescues animals, a benevolent teacher and a nature lover whose prose often reads like a field guide to New England flora and fauna, he's also the sort who gets a thrill out of convincing young children that he's eaten a baby. The humor isn't always so dark. But dark or light, ""Mr. Pickmenose,"" as one student dubbed him, can usually get a laugh out of even the most cynical reader. (Mar.)