Pawn to Queen Four

In 1993, Eighner's Travels with Lizbeth garnered numerous critical bouquets, praise that seems likely to be encored for this outre outing. That memoir of the author's years as a homeless struggling writer scrutinized the underbelly of Austin, Tex. The larky escapades chronicled here are set chiefly in a fanciful gay community that is labeled Austin but could as easily be Barrie's Neverland. Indeed, Eighner's wit is sprinkled about the proceedings like so much fairy dust. His repartee is scintillating (when it isn't puzzling, and sometimes it's both), and he knows precisely when and how to spring the unexpected non sequitur or the dead-on satiric barb. The story begins in the Imperial Court of the Jade Chimera, an Austin institution presided over by Madam Agnes (ne Angus McKinney), a 60-ish drag queen who makes RuPaul look like a dowdy has-been. Agnes dispatches the newly arrived hunk du jour, Jim, to Osage, Okla., where he is to recover certain incriminating photos from Brother Earl, a sleazy evangelist who heads the Holy Word of God University and Technical Institute. Subsequent episodes involve Osage's one gay bar (a hilarious watering hole worthy of its own novel), a Ku Klux Klan meeting gone awry and a plethora of quirky personalities. In a stylish display of plot and character juggling, however, Eighner eventually merges his rapid-fire scene and story line switcheroos into a dizzy, dazzling whole. (Nov.)