Citizens of Butte, Mont., will love the portrait of their city that Mosher (The Buffalo Runners) draws here, so vivid that one can imagine navigating the streets without a tourist map. The protagonist is Billy Bristol, a not very likable university dropout and all-around failure who fancies himself a writer, though all he writes are absurd and megalomaniacal letters to magazines and publishers, who promptly urge him to seek other work. In desperate arrears with his rent and his bar tab, Billy keeps an appointment with his employment counselor, Buff, who endures Billy's childish jokes about her name and finds him a job as companion to 80-year-old blind German actress Andrea Kauffman, who speaks heavily accented English ("Vat do youse do vithout a car?") and arranges for Billy to drive her mint 1957 Chevy convertible. For some reason, Kauffman likes Billy and arranges a date for him with Buff, who believes Billy is a writer and doesn't find him totally obnoxious. And it turns out that Kauffman has several major surprises to reveal about her past, which will affect Billy's future. Mosher crafts a number of eccentric supporting characters, including Billy's mother, who runs an unsuccessful drop-in center for street people; a mad taxi driver who wins a lottery; an insane psychiatrist; and a pompous academic who once expelled Billy from college. Though the publisher invites comparisons to A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole's protagonist had fierce energy and endless charisma, while Billy is terminally lazy, arrogant and self-absorbed. Much of the satire is shallow and for the most part misses the mark. (July)
