Bluefeather Fellini

Magic realism and grim naturalism are two of the styles successfully employed by Evans (who wrote the classic western, The Rounders ) in his picaresque tale of an archetypal American. Born in New Mexico in 1918, the half-Indian, half-Italian Bluefeather decides while still in his teens that his future lies with the earth and so becomes a prospector, although he will also spend time as a cardsharp, a soldier and a salesman. He roams across the Southwest, whose enchanting physical and spiritual terrain is captured in dreamy prose that recalls Latin American fiction: a humorous, enigmatic spirit guide named Dancing Bear intermittently appears to advise Bluefeather in times of danger, and other characters with one foot in the world beyond include Dr. Merphyn Godchuck and his aunt Tulip Everhaven, who distill a magic elixir from sagebrush leaves. The narrative tone changes dramatically to describe Bluefeather's participation in D-Day and the subsequent push into Germany in harrowing, unsentimental detail; these nearly surreal passages are war writing at its best. Bluefeather survives and endures, in the end personifying the hopefulness of a revived postwar nation. The first volume of fiction to be issued by this university press, this is a highly engaging epic. Paperback rights to Bantam. (Oct.)