Ross M. (Parrothead) reviewed on 6/30/2006 + 533 more book reviews

The lead sentence of Waller's potential bestseller is a first line that may turn up in quizzes, though not of the literary variety. "When this nameless piece a' shit tore off Linda Lobo's G-string instead of sticking money in it... Texas Jack Carmine went crazy-over-the-edge...." But make no mistake about it: while Texas Jack Carmine is neither as well-educated nor as well-spoken as Robert Kincaid or Michael Tillman, the protagonists of Waller's previous novels, he is equally intelligent, sensitive and romantic under the facade of his raunchy, beer-guzzling persona. With a twang in his voice matched by the low-down grit of Waller's prose, Jack is a restless man who lives "sweet and free... a rider of summer roads, traveler of far places." After he impulsively rescues long-legged, "high-assed" Linda from her job in a Minnesota bar, he discovers that she is the woman of his dreams. Jack takes Linda home to his one-horse ranch in Texas where they enjoy an idyllic year, doomed to end, however, as readers realize immediately, since Waller applies foreshadowing with a sledgehammer touch. Jack's "spells," flashbacks to the killing he did in Vietnam, are the reason that the lovers eventually part. But Jack assumes legendary proportions in the lives of everyone whose path he crosses; all eventually realize that "'he set us free... he loved us in a special way and in doin' so taught us to think better of ourselves."
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