Diminished Capacity

Kiraly's second novel after California Rush traces two characters with diminished capacity-Cooper Zerbs (closed head injury) and his Uncle Rollie (leaning toward Alzheimer's)-as they take a very valuable baseball card from small-town Missouri to Chicago with hopes that some rabid Cub fans will buy the card and preserve Uncle Rollie's independence for a while. The play between the outwitted and the dimwitted, between the expected forces of evil (bad guys, faulty memory) and some unexpected forces of good (Cooper's high school sweetheart, more memory deficit) help hurtle man, uncle and card toward engaging resolution. The built-in device of a brain-injured first-person narrator is more than this lighthearted novel can handle at points, but Kiraly makes his tale glisten with quirky details: fish who ``type'' poetry in the night, a videotaped Dear John letter, a gunslinging alcoholic who slowly trades off his baseball card collection for beers, a fast-food restaurant with genetically engineered salad. While Diminished Capacity is not narrative rocket science, it is good for a laugh and a pleasant afternoon. Advertising. (Sept.)