Show Me the Way to Go Home

The cockeyed characters of the small coastal town of Milford, N.C., seem enveloped in a dreamy haze in this impressionistic first novel. Their lonesome lives are disrupted by two unorthodox visitors: Jake Cullen, a hustler from California who may be an angel in disguise, and former resident Grace Jamison, returned from Italy as Princess Graziella, a widow and self-described ``collapsing star.'' Julian Warren is trying to recapture the love of his wife, Laura, who has left him for the theater. Neither Julian nor Laura has much time for their young son Jubie, so Jake becomes his sort-of guardian angel. Thus Jake meets Susan Johnson, whose marriage to Julian's business partner Skinner Bates breaks up when Skinner has an affair with Graziella. The foggy plot grows murkier as the characters become increasingly drunk and unpredictable, but the surreal atmosphere is nonetheless mesmerizing. Jones's story plays out like a plaintive musical movement, reverberating with metaphysical and religious overtones. (Oct.)