The Master of Chambord

Knight's rambling, episodic fiction debut about an aging American journalist who slowly relives his post-WWII salad days in rural southern France reads more like a memoir in search of a plot than a cohesive novel. As the tale opens, Lloyd Foster is desperately searching for a place to bury his mother-in-law, who has died after a lengthy illness. Rather than serve as a compelling beginning, this scene instead outlines the mostly mundane details of Foster's life: his French first wife, Huguette; her father's family estate, Biribi, where Foster spent time both during and after service in the European theater; his career as a foreign correspondent. The chief conflict in the story concerns Foster's efforts to help his relatives get rid of a nearby landowner, a French nobleman and petty tyrant who harasses his neighbors in startlingly violent and dangerous ways via a band of brigands known as the Uhlans. Knight's writing is competent but rarely gripping. The tone fluctuates from mildly comic to excessively brutal as the story moves among melodramatic confrontations, elegiac family episodes, poignant personal memories and hallucinogenic musings in which Foster becomes convinced that Moritz is spiritually linked to Ariel Sharon, whom the despot physically resembles. Ultimately, this odd collection of literary parts and pieces will probably disappoint anyone who doesn't have a special interest in either the period or the area. (July)