Down from the Dog Star

Purporting to be a goofy collection of letters written by zany, aging gay man Jackie Luden to various friends and fellow participants of Narcotics Anonymous, this debut effort is less a novel than a collection of eccentric vignettes. Jackie lives at Quarter Pine, the Luden family's ancestral home in Ludens Bend, Ala., with his son-worshipping aristocratic mom, Minnie, and Minnie's best friend and constant companion, Helen, an old black freedom fighter who has posed as the Ludens' maid all her life. Ludens Bend is also home to beer-bellied redneck Sheriff Beebus McCloud, who, out of old loyalty to Jackie's mother, mostly looks the other way when Jackie misbehaves. Jackie's non-NA pen pals include Junior Wulmothe, his obese, gay lifelong friend; the good Sisters who run the Eternal Life Cafe and Souvenir Shop for Jesus, and a missionary outreach program in the heart of the Amazonian jungle; the dead ""Walter"" Disney; Dr. Jack ""Snuggles"" Kavorkian (sic); and the Coca-Cola Company. In his first letter, Jackie describes how he murdered the nasty kid who poisoned his saintly dog, Honey. Neither dog nor kid were actually murdered, but murder does play a part in the desultory plot. The only real action comes when the sheriff seems to get serious about pursuing various investigations and Jackie flees to the Amazon, where, surrounded by friendly cannibals and aliens, he writes more letters. In the last quarter of the book the author inexplicably presents the voices of other characters, and the reader wishes he had integrated them from the beginning. Though overly long and often tedious, the ""not-so-thinly-veiled autobiography"" occasionally offers up a bone-ticklingly funny morsel off smalltown Alabama life. (Oct.)