A Tale of Specters, Salvation and Home Restoration

I recently blew a little dust off John Gardner’s novel “Mickelsson’s Ghosts,” published in 1982, the same year the author died in a motorcycle accident. The story concerns a professor of philosophy, Peter Mickelsson, who has fallen on hard times. His marriage has dissolved. The IRS is dunning him. His attorney is giving him bad advice. His teaching post at a university in New York lacks tenure. And he is getting deeper into the bottle.

In an effort to mend his cracked-up life, he buys an old farmhouse in Pennsylvania. He sets about restoring the old manse (a metaphor for his life) only to find that the place is haunted with the ghosts of former occupants. Before long there are more albatrosses: a dog he kills with a walking stick, a grotesquely fat bank robber he kills for his loot, a backwoods prostitute he gets pregnant, and a beautiful colleague he is smitten with but is helpless to assist in her troubles.

The professor’s eventual salvation is not so much a Christian one as a selfless acceptance and affirmation of life and love of community. (In fact, it’s the local bumpkins and witches who conspire to save his life.)

THOMAS FASANO

Long Beach

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The book I keep on my night table and return to again and again is “The Pushcart Prize XX: Best of the Small Presses.” One of a series I have been reading since its beginning in 1976, this 20th anniversary edition surpasses all the others and includes the very best writing culled by an impressive list of editors from small press publications.

In an industry in which money, fame and scandal seem to have the greatest influence on acquisitions by large publishing houses, small presses have become an important outlet for literary writing and ideas. Along with little-known writers such as Melissa Pritchard and Nora Cobb Keller, who contribute astonishing short stories, some of our most prestigious writers appear in “The Pushcart Prize.” This edition includes a prison story by Grace Paley that first appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, and an essay, “Bad,” by Frederick Busch, that first appeared in Ploughshares. Busch’s iconoclastic essay is the last word on current literary fashions, and I find myself making quite a splash when I quote it at literary parties.

SHEILA GOLBURGH JOHNSON

Santa Barbara

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I have just finished reading a romance novel by Beverly Clark, “Yesterday Is Gone,” a beautiful, tender love story. Augusta Humphrey is a new doctor with a new car (a BMW). She has an automobile accident and becomes blind. Then she meets Todd Winters, who starts to help her rebuild her life. But Todd has a secret that could break Augusta’s heart once again.

I am looking forward to Clark’s new novel, “A Love to Cherish,” which is due in bookstores soon.

LAURA W. THOMSON

Burbank

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“Going Nowhere Fast” and “Bad News Travels Fast,” both by Gar Anthony Haywood, are mysteries in a series featuring the Loudermilk family. The parents are a middle-aged couple, Dottie and Joe, who has just retired as a police officer. Dottie and Joe encounter numerous criminal types as they travel cross-country in their deluxe Airstream trailer.

Without giving away too much about either book, each involves one or more of the five, mainly dysfunctional, Loudermilk children as they fail to exercise discretion or to make mature decisions. The stories are fun reads--exciting, surprising and rewarding. Each has left me pleasantly content, and I look forward to the next chapter in the Loudermilk family’s adventures.

SYLVIA DOHNAL

Arcadia

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* What’s that book in your beach bag (or carry-on, or on your night table)? Is it any good? Send us a review! We’re especially interested in hearing about fiction that you don’t find reviewed in The Times, but feel free to send us your opinions of whatever it is you are reading. Keep the reviews short (200 words, tops) and send them (with your phone number) to READERS REVIEWS, Life and Style, The Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles CA 90053, or fax them to (213) 237-0732. We’ll print the most interesting ones every other week. Sorry, but no submissions can be returned.