The Flamingo Rising

A crazed dachshund-terrier is kept alone in a tower. A funeral-home owner shoots daily at the neon cowboy marquee of the neighboring drive-in theater. A skywriter crash-lands promoting the film Psycho. With people and circumstances just that side of ordinary, this pitch-perfect first novel is reminiscent of the best of John Irving. In 1953, the Flamingo is featured in Life as the world's largest drive-in theater: a 150-foot-high Florida oceanside tower serves as the theater screen. Fifteen years later, the tower-screen is home to Hubert Lee, Edna Scott and their two adopted Korean children--and a chronic sun-blocking nuisance to mortician Turner West. The feud between Lee and West is hilarious and tragic, as the ostensible land battle (really a struggle for Edna's heart) obstructs the burgeoning love between Lee's son, Abraham Isaac, and West's daughter, Grace. An Asian among rednecks, narrator Abe/Izzy recounts with much warmth and little animus his coming-of-age in a world gone slightly madcap. Like the giant July 4th fireworks display toward which the story builds, this engaging, moving novel sends up one sparkler after another on its way to a crash-bang, heart-stopping ending. 100,000 first printing; simultaneous Random House audio. (Sept.)