Taking a Funny and Touching Look at Love in Its Many Forms

CRAZY LOVE

A Novel

By David Martin

Simon & Schuster

288 pages, $23

*

What happens when an attractive, well-educated Washington, D.C.-based animal-rights lobbyist meets up with a big, lumbering, oddball Appalachian farmer whose nastier neighbors consider him a “retard”? The answer to this question is contained in the title of David Martin’s 10th novel, “Crazy Love.”

Shy, lonely Joseph David Long, more commonly known as “Bear,” is still a virgin at 32. Uncommonly hard-working but slow of speech, Bear at first glance is not what an ambitious, clever, professional woman like Katherine Renault would be looking for in a man. The lady has come to the country to recuperate from a serious illness and operation. She and Bear meet by chance, intervening to rescue a mistreated cow. Beneath their apparent differences, the two have at least one thing in common: They both can’t abide cruelty to animals.

It’s clear that the perky city gal and the apple-cheeked country fellow are destined for some kind of romance, especially after we learn that she has a “perfect” fiance back in Washington who calls her by all three syllables of her name “Kath-er-ine.” (Bear calls her “Katie,” as in “Katydid.”) It’s pretty clear, too, who the bad guys are: There’s “Scrudde,” for instance: “He was a sneaky little man, age fifty-six, who had acquired a fortune through deceit--cheating widows, for example. He seldom attacked directly but was relentless on the back end of a deal, stabbing you with a lawyer if it came to that. In his younger days he’d been notorious as a dog-poisoner.” When Bear and Katie come between Scrudde and his tormented cow, he and his henchman, the aptly named Coote, plan their revenge.

In his previous nine novels, including thrillers (“Lie to Me”), mysteries (“Pelikan”) and offbeat love stories (“The Crying Heart Tattoo”), Martin has shown himself to be a natural storyteller with a knack for mixing fantasy with reality. “Crazy Love” is chunky with the gritty details of rural life--the filthy state of a house overrun by cats, the violence of an assault, the swollen flesh of a wounded animal or person--yet also manages to spin around them a sheer web of fantasy, as Bear becomes able to hear--or imagine he can hear--animals talk to him. Through the reality and fantasy alike runs a vein of wry humor, softening the harshness of the one, tempering the extravagance of the other.

“Crazy Love” is a funny, touching--one might even say sentimental--book about love in many forms: the love between a man and a woman, the love shared by siblings, parents and children, the devotion of pets to their masters, the good farmer’s care for his animals. Katie and Bear’s romance is chronicled with folksy charm:

“In the living room, Bear asked Katie to tell him the rules.

“‘What do you mean?’

“‘I do good with rules, tell me what they are and I’ll follow them.’

“She still didn’t know what he meant. ‘Rules for what?’

“‘Loving you ... for how you and me can fall in love.’

“Katie smiled thinly and wondered how the hell she was going to get out of this without hurting his feelings. ‘I’m not aware of any rules for how people fall in love. Part of it is just the chemistry between them.’

“‘You got the formula?’

“‘Bear, be serious.’

“‘I am. I am serious as a tree.’”

There’s more to Bear--and Katie--than first meets the eye. In the course of their crusade to rescue mistreated animals, the two of them also come to find a viable middle ground about the right way for humans to treat other living beings. Some of the animal-rights people Katie works with consider it wrong to harm or kill an animal for any reason, including for food. Bear is a farmer who raises beef cattle. But unlike some of the other farmers and pet owners in the area, Bear believes that owning an animal doesn’t convey the right to mistreat it and that raising animals for eventual slaughter as meat doesn’t mean you have no obligation to provide them with happy and healthy lives up until that point. Even so, Bear finds it’s not always easy to make the right decisions, as he reconsiders his past behavior toward pests like groundhogs, bats and mice. And what is the right response toward fellow humans who inflict violence?

For all its easy humor and lightness of touch, Martin has written a novel that takes on some serious matters. The inevitability of death and the preciousness of life--its fragility and tenacity--are present throughout. And, of course, “Crazy Love” is also a celebration of love, but a celebration that recognizes the hard work that goes into caring for or about any living creature.