cover image Another Line

Another Line

James Heller Levinson. Watermark Press, $7.5 (197pp) ISBN 978-0-922820-03-0

David J. Hoffman, the hero of this picaresque journey to nowhere, is an L.A. textile merchant. The author, a poet who makes his living as a textile salesman, knows his material; his energy is evident, and he can be very funny. But the novel simply spins out of control. The numerous, puerile fantasy sex scenes with willing, brainless women quickly become tiresome, as does the protagonist's whining about his failure to find a new textile line to sell. Levinson may have wanted to offer comic insight into the soul of a dreamer trapped in a crumbling world of commerce; he succeeds only in bringing new meaning to the words ``self-indulgent'' and ``ego trip.'' The abrupt ending is just like the rest of the book: a calculated effecteffort?eed/effect seems ok to me/pk , intended to be clever and significant, which instead manages to be infuriating. We wait and wait for the death of this salesman, but he just keeps droning on. (June)