cover image Lady of Spain

Lady of Spain

Robert L. Taylor. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $16.95 (277pp) ISBN 978-0-945575-79-5

Set in Oklahoma City, this lyrical, often witty novel explores a somewhat mundane 1950s boyhood. Vaguely interrelated episodes in protagonist Bill Haynes's life form the narrative, reflecting the way still-lucid recollections bind together our own hazy childhood memories. Affected by the contagious disillusionment of his unhappy parents, Billy poetically muses on his unremarkable middle-class world; Taylor captures his quintessentially adolescent attitudes in suitably grandiose yet playful prose. When introduced to jazz, Bill tires of playing such nostalgic odes as ``Lady of Spain'' on his accordion and takes up the clarinet, reasoning that ``one's own breath coursed through it, not air sucked in through a bellows.'' During his stint at a shoe store, he takes part in erotically charged rituals with female customers and rival salesmen (``I eased a satin slipper onto a girl's small and sleek foot. . . and conjured up a vision of some dark-eyed redeeming angel''). Taylor's ( Loving Belle Starr ) graceful treatment of a young man's coming-of-age, though far from extraordinary, reminds readers of unrequited early crushes, first sips of whiskey and startling glimpses of adulthood. (Sept.)