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Our Story Begins: The Lemur
Published: 8/31/2008 10:54 PM
Last Modified: 8/31/2008 10:54 PM

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

"Never judge a book by its cover" usually holds true, but one is tempted to make an exception in the case of "The Lemur," the latest novel by Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville, published under the name Benjamin Black.

The cover of the Picador paperback is that of a man's head, his features obscured by a cloud of smoke.

And that described the story's main character -- a one-time investigative journalist named John Glass, who gave his press card and his globe-trotting, truth-seeking ways in order to marry the daughter of "Big Bill" Mulholland, a millionaire businessman and former CIA honcho.

Glass has been given the task of writing his father-in-law's biography -- a job that Glass couldn't turn down, but for which he has little interest. He decides to hire an outside researcher -- something he's sure his father-in-law, who hasn't lost his spy's mania for secrecy and control, isn't going to like -- to do the digging that Glass doesn't want to have to do himself.

The problem is, said researcher -- a fellow named Dylan Riley whose gangly frame and large eyes remind Glass of a lemur -- already knows a great deal about Mulholland, and probably an equal amount about Glass.

Which makes it doubly inconvenient when Riley is murdered just a few days after Glass meets him for the first time, and apparently hours after Riley called Glass, saying he had dug up some facts that should be worth half the $1 million Glass' father-in-law is paying for his biography.

Now about that cover: Glass is the only character in the book who smokes, and one minor aspect of "The Lemur" is the way Glass' addiction to tobacco permeates the story. There is a bit of comedy early when Glass smokes a cigarette in the pristine high rise office where he is supposed to be writing the biography, and then struggles, in a spasm of shame and guilt, to get rid of the evidence.

Glass -- and isn't that a wonderful name! -- acts like a guilty man from the first sentence of "The Lemur." But his guilt is for a myriad of what most people would consider minor offenses, from smoking in public buildings to going behind his father-in-law's back to bring an outsider into the biography project, to cheating on his wife (who, he is convinced, is cheating on him, as well).

He's not even sure he likes smoking. "The trouble with smoking was that the desire to smoke was so much greater than the satisfaction afforded by actually smoking. Sometimes when he had a cigarette going he was forget and reach for the pack and start another. Maybe that was the thing to do, smoke six at a time, three in the gaps between the fingers of each hand, achieve a Gatling-gun effect." (Pg. 11)

This attitude spills over into everything Glass does. He wants something -- he knows that -- but he's not sure what it is, so he hurries through situations, with the vague hope that maybe the next thing will be the right thing, that he'll find what he's looking for.

Of course, he doesn't -- "The Lemur" is a crime story, and in crime stories, the next thing that happens is always worse than the last. And as "The Lemur" progresses, we realize that Glass is living up to his name -- he's a man terribly transparent, and terribly fragile.

What do you think about "The Lemur"?


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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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