The First Book of Timothy

This strange, quasi-psychedelic novel tells the story of Timothy Brown King, son of a late senator from Maine, and imbues it with more portent than most books of the Bible dare to project. During the days and nights of heightened tension that accompany the Cuban missile crisis, Timothy drops out of Dartmouth and boards a Greyhound bus for New York City. Although his father was pals with John F. Kennedy, Timothy is a card-carrying member of the American Communist Party (for reasons that have less to do with the intricacies of political economy than with the joys of countercultural nose-thumbing). The trajectory of his life soon intersects with a group of literature professors at New York University, among whom are to be found both Communist agents and FBI informants. In the course of a few days, while the fate of the world seems to hang in the balance, Timothy (who bears a certain resemblance to Myshkin in Dostoyevski's The Idiot) discovers a great deal about his deceased father, including the fact that he had a child by a beautiful Hungarian professor. Kelley is a kinetic writer who can turn conversations between characters into complex verbal dances. But just because he can, doesn't mean he should. At least not all the time. He makes the same mistake that Timothy does, taking ``one and all so seriously, including himself.'' Much of this novel reads like a rant against the excesses of American patriotism and vapidity during the Cold War. Like all rants, it's by turns thrilling and exhausting and consistently undisciplined. (Nov.)