Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 72

6F Sunday, April II, 1982 The Clarion-Ledger Jackson Daily News Sommer's 'Last Resort' offers quick thrills, long-range results Ehle's 'Winter People' creates scenes similar to 'Deliverance' Book review Book review Last Resort By Scott Sommer Random House, $12.50 The Winter People By John Ehle Harper Row, $13.95 By ROSE ISAACSON LEVINE Wmfcca Special About an hour before sundown, Collie Wright saw a man moving through her deadened woods, coming toward her house, a cabin on the edge of the small mountain community where she lives alone with her baby. She gets out her butcher knife, puts Jonathan down and waits. To her relief, Wayland Jackson turns out to be a lost traveler, with him is his 12-year-old daughter Paula. Jackson is recently widowed and is on his way to Tennessee, where he plans to practice his profession as a clock-maker. John Ehle has created a beautifully crafted story about North Carolina mountain folk, and about a feud between the Wright and Campbell clans.

Although they have been living in peace, it is a wary peace, with the knowledge that the bitter feud, the animosity that has permeated their relationship for years could erupt in violence and bloodshed at any moment Collie, very pretty and independent, takes the Jacksons in for the night, with the understanding that they are to leave in the morning. However, the Jacksons remain on in Collie's cabin. Wayland makes himself very useful, he can mend and repair almost everything, and Paula adores the baby and is very helpful with him. Collie's family is not too happy with this arrangement, but Mr. Wright, the patriarch of the clan, passes judgement on Jackson, allows him to remain, and gives him a corner of Gudger's store to set up his clockmaking business.

Gudger is the oldest of the Wright's sons, Milton, the middle son, and Young is the youngest, a free, untamed young man. It is inevitable that Wayland and Collie should fall in love, Wayland's gentleness appeals to her, but Collie, who has steadfastly refused to identify Jonathan's father, dreads the day that her lover will return; she knows that in a fit of rage he could kill Wayland. By MIKE HALL WeekoW Editor It occurred to me halfway through Scott Sommer's Last Resort that I wasn't paying any attention to the plot I was clinging on every well-chosen word, but I didn't care where they were taking me. It was the immediate thrill I was seeking, not the long-range result It seems safe to assume that happens to most readers of Scott Sommer, a man who has been compared to Salinger and Vonnegut for exactly that reason. With his words he constructs characters that you know are not real, but you also know they exist somewhere, on some plane.

Just 13 lines on page 38 of Lust Resort say more about Aldo Huxley "Tramp" Bottoms' mother than could most authors if they had devoted a book to the woman: "I had the skeleton of the new stairway completed when my mother, Vera Bottoms, walked onto the patio at two, fresh from her hiatus of twenty-two straight hours in bed. She examined the stairway to her domestic catastrophe with skepticism. Frankly, I could not blame her, it had never led one of us to any good. "She was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette in a white plastic holder. Mercifully, her eyes were hidden behind green sunglasses.

Less mercifully, her mouth was luminous with purple lipstick. I found her presence funereally disquieting, but then I tend to lack magnanimity. When she addressed me, her voice contained all the tremulous dread of a breakdown candidate without a sanitarium reservation." There's no question from this point where the Vera Bottoms character is headed. Vera is, however, only one of a cast of kooks in Last Resort, the story of an aspiring rock star, Tramp, and the love of his life, Leah. The lovers had recently decided it would be best to call off their engagement, Tramp because he believed he was too self-destructive for Leah and Leah because she thought it would be better to put Tramp on a deadline to grow up.

With their pending marriage down the tubes, they decide to return to their native coastal digs. Tramp moves in with his parents, the owners of a rundown resort Leah, who has an advance for a book she is writing, buys a home. Whirling around the couple are Vera and her husband, who is even nuttier than his wife, Tramp's live-in grandmother, the token "normal" person; Leah's parents, in a minor role; and It Is bear-hunting time in the mountains, and Collie's brother insists that Wayland come along to test him on this wild, crazy dangerous adventure. In scences reminiscent of James Dickey's Deliverance, Wayland proves his worth. There is a special male companionship among the participants in the bear hunt, they are hard drinking, the talk is raunchy and macho.

Upon returning, Wayland and Collie begin to plan to get married. But the peaceful interlude is shattered by the sudden appearance late one night of Collie's former lover, the father of her baby. The showdown is violent and bloody, and the fragile peace of the entire mountain community is shattered There is bound to be more violence and bloodshed, and there seems to be no way to stop the impending disaster. It would be unfair to tell more of this story that held me spellbound. Each of the characters is drawn in depth, and each is different: Mr.

Wright, his sons, Gudger, Milton, and Young, and his daughter, Collie. Young always said Collie was the strongest of the lot, and she proves herself to be. The dialogue is natural to the region; there is a bit of everything in The Winter People, drama, tension, love, tenderness, humor, and plenty of action and adventure. Deceptively simple, Ehle has recreated the lives of the mountain people by writing about them. Howard, an ex-lawyer who went bonkers when his wife left him.

Howard at first looks for a new meaning in life through carpentry and later finds it with Tramp's crippled sister, Teresa. And there's Owen Chance, Tramp's sexually demented manager and possessor of Sommer's finest dialogue: "Dialing the phone, I sank to my knees and lit a cigarette. The tape machine intoned: 'God is music. Music is Tramp. Tramp is There was a click and then the voice of my manager came on the live wire.

'Ah, kind of pop 'n' roll!" 'What's 'News, guy. Super manager has news Just let the minstrel gigolo be forewarned: This last step is the trickiest We are still working in the Twilight Zone and the higher we go, the further we are entitled to fall' amm Oh yes, the plot Or do you care? You do. Then here's a hint, which happens to be the next to the last paragraph of Last Resort. It also says Sommer is more than a comedian: "You reach adulthood by traversing a minefield. Traditionally, those before you, those older than you, those closer to the end, lead the way by the tyrannies of custom and habit What happens when those traditions crumble is something else again.

If you are lucky, you make it anyway, and sometimes you are better off for it" Sommer's novel made it And HE deserves to be better off Blues featured at fest Mississippi Delta Blues music will serve as the theme when Delta State University's Department of English hosts the annual convention of the Mississippi Folklore Society Friday and Saturday. The meetings on Saturday are open to the general public. The Folklore Society is a state organization dealing primarily with institutions of higher learning. Its purpose is to preserve and present to the public the heritage of Mississippi culture. Various focuses have included Mississippi writers, music, and cultural traditions and superstitions.

Convention programs consist of presentations concerning folklore issues, concerts, and special speakers. Jessie Mae Hemphill and The Raymonds and Lillie Hill Band are scheduled to perform 10-11 a.m. Saturday. The main forum deals with "Human Values in Delta Blues Music" and will be held from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Saturday. Guest speakers at this forum are Bill Ferris and Barry Pearson. Ferris, Anthropology Professor at the University of Mississippi, is the Director of the Center for Study of Southern Culture. Pearson, English Professir at the University of Maryland, is President of the Maryland Folklore Society. Wednesday at St.

Andrew's Wednesday at St. Andrew's will present soprano Diane Faust Carroll in a performance of the cantata Janchzet Gott by J.S. Bach. The concert will also include the concertino for organ and strings by the 20th century composer Walter Leigh with organist John Paul. The concert will be conducted by William Carroll, director of choral music at Millsaps College.

The public is invited to attend the concert which begins at noon in the nave of the Cathedral. Lunch in the Parish Hall will follow the performance. teen's pizza 3 9 Buy one pina ani get the nxt smaller sixe piixa (with equal VALUE) eobg 0 11 fifse. Hi F3SH DINNER 3 golden brown fish filets 2 hush puppies french ties coleslaw CHICKEN DINNER a generous portion of golden brown chicken diets special sweet n' sour sauce 2 hush puppies french fries coleslaw SHRIMP FEAST a generous portion of golden brown shrimp 2 hush puppies cocktail sauce french fries coleslaw CALL IN FOR FASTER SERVICE I IJ-J IIP 803 NORTHSIDE DR. CLINTON, MISS.

924-7772 3015 HWY. 80 E. PEARL, MISS. 932-2225 020i Captain D's. seafood (at participating Captain Ps) tern's.

pizza Aworidoffiood taste Right at your fingertips. An invitation PLAN NOW TO ATTEND THE 1982 SUMMER SESSION AT BELHAVEN COLLEGE DAY PROGRAM First Term: May 31 to July 2 Second Term: July 6 to August 6 EVENING PROGRAM One Seven-Week Term: June 9 to July 29 FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND BROCHURES CALL OR DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS BELHAVEN COLLEGE JACKSON, MS 39202969-7400 4 First National Presents: Take a mid-day musical break in Smith Park. -This is First National's way of helping make springtime a fun time in downtown Jackson, and you are cordially invited to come and enjoy! Light lunches available. Monday, April 12 12 Noon to 1 PM featuring The Jackson Symphony Orchestra Men: Is this what your partners think about you? If so you contact us today, there is still time to make your fun times a success. ilbtp resents rFSgg mmammmmmm tit- private lessons If Learn Country Western Ballroom Jitter Bug Disco Learning to dance is fun and easy at: COLONIAL DANCE STUDIO Call Weekdays 1-9 p.m.

362-2414 Member FDIC.