{"id":4907,"date":"2015-10-07T06:49:47","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T10:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4907"},"modified":"2015-10-07T06:49:47","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T10:49:47","slug":"on-the-road-with-del-and-louise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4907","title":{"rendered":"****On the Road with Del and Louise"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Route

(photo: wikimedia.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Art Taylor<\/a>\u2013 Is it OK to say a book by a male author is \u201ccharming\u201d? Regardless of possible gender-bias, this book is. Del and Louise are a couple brought together by crime. They met when Del was robbing the 7-11 in Eagle Nest, New Mexico, where Louise worked. They stay together during a succession of American-style self-reinventions aimed at getting a \u201cfresh start,\u201d reinventions that invariably wind up in one shady enterprise or another, and they ultimately . . . well, read the book and find out.<\/p>\n

Taylor is an award-winning short story writer, and the individual chapters of this picaresque could stand alone. In fact, the first two chapters have done so, in past issues of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine<\/em>, where I first read and admired his work. His stories have won numerous Derringer, Agatha, and Macavity awards and are frequently anthologized.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s especially fun about On the Road<\/em> is how well Taylor develops the two principal characters. Del wants to do right, to get straight, but it just isn\u2019t happening, and Louise isn\u2019t above a little larceny herself, if it promotes the couple\u2019s welfare. Del\u2019s intelligence is complemented by Louise\u2019s cleverness in a pinch, and Del\u2019s planning skills by Louise\u2019s gut instincts. Together, they are a \u201cdoing the best they can\u201d pair and their story is filled with humor and insight into human failings. The people they meet along the way have plenty of those, as they do themselves.<\/p>\n

Their adventures are recounted by Louise in a straightforward and wry narrative voice that includes plenty of insight into her own shortcomings. Although the text is relatively unembellished, Taylor allows himself some spot-on literary flourishes (for instance, when he describes an early morning near Taos as \u201cthe sun creeping up, the boil not yet on the day\u201d) and comic bits: \u201cIf that first winery we went to was upper crust, the bar in Napa was sure the bottom of the pie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their travels take them from New Mexico to Victorville and Napa Valley, California, then to a comically disastrous scene in a Las Vegas wedding chapel (do I even need to say \u201ccheesy\u201d?). A stint in the North Dakota oil fields proves financially rewarding and emotionally bankrupting. There, Louise learns anew that \u201cThe reasons you do things don\u2019t always make up for the doing of them.\u201d Finally they reach North Carolina, Louise\u2019s home state, and her acerbic mother Cora. Her relentless belittling and undermining of Del are priceless, as if all the wicked thrusts and jabs of a lifetime must be desperately delivered in one short visit.<\/p>\n

Taylor has created an enjoyable tale and some nerve-wracking adventures without the need for a gruesome body count or far-fetched end-of-the-word-as-we-know-it scenarios. Because the story is so grounded in imperfect humanity and told so convincingly, we share Del and Louise\u2019s bumpy ride, rooting for them every mile of the way. While their lives will never be trouble-free, the reader senses they will always be good.<\/p>\n

A longer version of this review appeared on the Crime Fiction Lover website<\/a>.