Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones

Rich characterization and black humor with a thick Southern accent distinguish Witt's irresistible debut novel. Tom Jett, freshly equipped with a degree in philosophy, has left California for the open road. After three months of traveling, his Toyota breaks down outside Pick, Ky., a three-street mountain town that is being bought up by the Conroy Coal Company. Gilman Lee, Pick's premier mechanic, bootlegger, lover and musician, offers to put Tom up in a rundown cabin; in exchange, Tom is to keep a lookout for Conroy Coal augers trying to burrow under Gilman's land in search of new deposits. But Gilman hasn't told Tom that he keeps the skeleton of his best friend, Zack--upright in a chair, cigarette in hand--in the old smokehouse near the cabin. The odd nature of the town becomes clearest to Tom, however, when he spots Gemma Collet sitting naked in a nearby creek, covering herself with mud. Gemma, he learns, has ``been mad ever since she turned white''--i.e., contracted vitilego--at age 18. Gemma and Tom's romance makes cautious progress until Rosalie Wilson, Gilman's great lost love, returns from Florida, on the run from her rich but homicidal lover. Witt's talent, big and pleasingly quirky, marks her as a fresh new voice. (Feb.)