Ringer by Marshall Terry (review)

168 Western American Literature ing the draft (the Vietnam War looms in the background of both novels), and the son and daughter of Sarge Hummer, who used to run a desert museum exhibiting a bogus monster called “The Mystery of the Mojave.” These char­ acters are set to wandering the desert in a plot nearly defying summary, involv­ ing the theft of the last version of the “Mystery,” which may or may not be the real body of an alien being. The characters, separately and together, encounter elements which may or not link to form an alternative view of reality: among them are the beliefs of a flying saucer cult, the mythology of a lost Indian tribe (both possibly joined by the symbol of a six-fingered hand to west-African witchcraft), mutilations of animals and men in the desert, and three sinister men in a red convertible. Over thirty years ago, Frederick Bracher offered the now notorious pro­ nouncement that California writers had “no cult of the area comparable to the highly articulate feeling of Southern writers for the South, and there is no California myth which writers can exploit or against which they can react” (AQ 7[1955]: 276). There is such a California tradition, and Kem Nunn, having schooled himself within it, now emerges as one of its strong new voices. CHARLES L. CROW Bowling Green State University Ringer. By Marshall Terry. (San Antonio: Corona, 1987. 239 pages, $16.95.) The Ringer family, once the leading citizens of Ringer, Texas, in the Panhandle, now live an anonymous urban existence. The matriarch of the family is the widowed Eliza Ringer, who is nearing eighty. Eliza and her older son, Bill Ringer, live in Dallas, while her other son, always called “that Joe Ringer”—or “that damn Joe Ringer”— makes Dallas his base as he drifts around the country, always planning another of his abortive get-rich-quick schemes. As the novel opens, Eliza, who is suffering from self-diagnosed cancer, has been having visions that Joe is back in Dallas. She coerces Bill, who is always “Bubba” to her, into searching for Joe so that she can see him one last time before she dies. Joe was last seen during a Super Bowl game a year or so before when he went out for a package of Winstons. He abandons a wife and child, but they don’t seem overly bothered by his desertion. Fifty-year-old Bill Ringer, a manufacturer’s rep whose business is on the skids, won’t tell his wife Roseanne that he is down to one client and has plenty of time to look for “that damn Joe Ringer.” She gets angry over the whole Ringer family mess and goes to East Texas to “visit” her mother. Bill and some of his buddies go in search of Joe, but the elusive brother stays one step ahead of the posse. Joe is working on the biggest deal of his life: an outdoor country and western concert featuring “The Young Stars of Texas.” Joe is promising pros­ Reviews 169 pective backers that Willie and Waylon and Roy Acuff and Eddie Raccoon and everybody will show up for the Big Event. He finally finds a backer: a West Texas lunatic who will almost certainly kill Joe if the concert fails. And, no question, it will. It takes all the effort of the Ringer clan and their cousins to spring Joe from the trap he has laid for himself. Ringer, Marshall Terry’sfirst novel since Tom Northway (1968), isfunny and entertaining. Terry does a good job with his main character, Bill “Bubba” Ringer, and creates some lively caricatures of the rest of the cast. The author is especially good at capturing the flavor of Dallas in the eighties. JAMES WARD LEE The University of North Texas Dancing At The Rascal Fair. By Ivan Doig. (New York: Atheneum, 1987. 406 pages, $18.95.) Ivan Doig’s new book will delight and challenge any reader. Language responsive to the demands and joys ofenvironment presents the initial pleasure; but an even greater satisfaction is the discovery that once again Ivan Doig is taking chances. Dancing At The Rascal Fair, a...