Lunacy, lobsters and love between lawyers

When A novel opens with the scene of an indoor pool filled with lobsters and enough ice to keep them alive, and the environmental attorney who rigged this stunt in a mayor’s mansion makes his getaway in a stretch limo accompanied by a sheep-dog puppet, it’s hard not to think, here we go again: another spoof on enviro-terrorists to make the reader cringe at their outrageous acts while feeling guilty about the dire straits our Earth is in.

But “The Marriage of True Minds” has no dead bodies (if you don’t count a euthanized dog), no mystery to solve; it’s not so much a spoof as it is a love story, an unconventional love story at that. Instead, through mentally ill protagonists, comic book heroes and plenty of good lines, playwright Stephen Evans delivers in his debut novel an oddly serious message that has little to do with saving the world and is more of a reminder to save ourselves.

When Nick Ward ends up in the psych ward for this latest stunt, his ex-wife and law partner, Lena Grant, again comes to rescue him. She claims it’s the last time, which is our first hint that she and Nick aren’t really through. Inside Nick’s new residence -- complete with barred windows and straitjacket -- we meet Oscar, the attendant on Nick’s floor who always carries a classic comic book in his back pocket and passes along philosophical teachings from his heroes, and Sancho, the puppet that abetted the lobsters-in-the-pool act. Nick has been diagnosed with “delusional disorder.” The psychiatrist explains it as extraordinary brain activity, or as “French philosopher Rene Descartes once said: ‘I think, therefore I am.’ In a sense, [Nick] thinks too much, so he isn’t who he is.”

Lena represents Nick at his arraignment; her stiff, lawyerly boyfriend is the opposing counsel. When we first enter the courtroom, Nick is playing tick-tack-toe with Sancho, and Oscar is draped over the wooden railing between the defense table and the gallery, reading an “Iron Man” comic book. As the case is heard, Nick interrupts repeatedly, spouting irrelevant legal cases, points of law and his love for Lena. To complicate the situation, the charges are dropped in exchange for Lena taking custody of Nick while he serves his sentence of mandatory counseling and 160 hours of community service at an animal shelter.

The curtain on Act 2 goes up, witty banter begins, hilarity ensues. Nick begins to push the rules and put himself at risk of being thrown in jail or a psychiatric hospital, this time for good. Nick endears us with his love for animals and, eventually, even his lunacy. At times the storytelling crawls over the top: The antics lean toward slapstick and each character has one too many Neil Simon-esque comebacks. Evans’ playwriting talent shows in this keen sense of dialogue, as well as in the bone structure of each character. But the leanness of the action occasionally feels more like stilted stage direction than believable acts by authentic characters or a fully developed narrative.

Still, it’s hard to fault a playwright for not being novelistic enough when he crafts such lines for demented Nick as “memory is imagination in reverse” and “I don’t make plans. I have Visions.”

But is the story really about the marriage of true minds? Can Lena and Nick get back together if she is in a conventional relationship with a straight-laced attorney, works out at a gym and lives in a fancy apartment, and he loves balloon animals, has a puppet as a life companion and regularly dances to John Philip Sousa marches? As Shakespeare wrote, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.” Or as Ralph, the animal handler at the shelter where Nick has been assigned, observes, “A good marriage is not a democracy. It is a series of contiguous tyrannies by mutual consent.”

The marriage Evans refers to isn’t just between Lena and Nick, but also between our split-personality selves. He is reminding us to step over that fine line between sanity and insanity, to embrace our loony side once in a while. “In life,” he writes, “our minds assemble the elements of experience . . . into memories, and from those memories our imagination constructs a persona. Even those we love exist only in our imagination.”

Evans is quite the imagineer, and his novel is well worth an afternoon read.

--

Amy Wallen is the author of “MoonPies and Movie Stars.”