Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic Williams, P. 1991 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Perfect Timing explores the mind of a man on a riotous adventure through heaven, hell, and Myrtle Beach.
Ford Clayton is a music professor at a small conservatory in Asheville, North Carolina, facing a thinning hairline, a crumbling marriage, and the failure of his dreams of symphonic genius. Worn out from wrestling with the triple burden of marriage, music, and maturity, and in need of some resolution in his life, he is startled to recognize his first love, a formerly gifted pianist, in a television documentary on the homeless. Accompanied by his recently paroled, born-again, hilariously insane cousin, Ford sets out on a mission to rescue Camille Malone from the ranks of the homeless, to confront his past and define his future, and to finally finish something he's started.
Alternately comic and tragic, Perfect Timing is a off-beat, delayed-coming-of-age tale and a laugh-filled journey to the heart of a man who hasn't seen his heart in years.
Author Notes
Philip Lee Williams is the author of fourteen published books. He lives in Georgia.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With the same clear-eyed and uncloying sensitivity for eccentric characters he displayed in All the Western Stars , Williams takes on mid-life madness in this tale of dreams both dashed and fulfilled. Ford Clayton teaches musicology at the North Carolina music conservatory he graduated from 20 years before, a continuity that pleased him once but finds him, at middle age, feeling safe and sorry. He has a brief affair with a student, prompting his wife to decamp with the children. Then on a TV show about New York City's homeless he sees Camille Malone, the great love of his college days, and becomes convinced that if he can find her he'll recover the promise of his youth. A series of credible misunderstandings takes him, in the company of his little-loved cousin Clarence-- just out of federal prison and recently born again-- to Myrtle Beach to meet Camille and to reclaim passion for both life and music. Riffs of laugh-out-loud humor lighten the serious movements of Ford's quest as Williams leads him and other memorable characters, notably the prodigiously talented but unbalanced Camille, toward a satisfying finale. A special treat for readers who love music. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Williams's fifth novel (Slow Dance in Autumn, etc.)--a bittersweet comedy about a man who searches for the woman he loved in the Sixties--is sometimes tedious, but its familiar mix of southern argot and good-ole-boy humor, spiced this time with some religious parody, can also be clever and touching. Ford Clayton is a North Carolina music professor suffering from midlife crisis: wife Jill moves to Macon after he has an affair, and his opera, based on East of Eden, is getting nowhere. Then he sees Camille Malone, the woman he worshipped, in a documentary about the homeless; and, once the story kicks into gear (it takes a while), Ford takes off with cousin Clarence (""I'll just be like your private preacher or something""), who was ""released from prison and washed in the Blood of the Lamb at the same time,"" for Myrtle Beach, where Ford arranges to meet Camille. Interwoven are flashbacks to Ford's childhood (""First and always, there was music"") and to his life with Camille. She was a whiz at almost everything from classical piano to Sixties litchat; founded ""The Malone Society"" for ""Philosophico-Musico-Politico Discussion""; organized antiwar rallies; and then found religion. At Myrtle Beach, Camille--still crazy but no bag-lady--founds a new religion with Clarence and later follows Ford back to North Carolina (he becomes reconciled with his wife) to kick off ""The Test and the Text"" (their religion) with a beer rally. It flops--and Camille returns to New York while Ford sets Yeats's ""Lake Isle of Innisfree"" to music, finally achieving something, if only in a minor key. The new religion (""The Book of Mister James Durante,"" ""The Book of Baseball Statistics"") is a lot of fun, and the humor is often right-on: altogether, then, a successful version of the Sixties Novel, about people who yearn to be who they once were but settle for what they have. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
One man's midlife crisis is the starting point for this funny and touching quest for the meaning of art and love and life itself. Musicology professor and would-be composer Ford Clayton, adrift when wife Jill takes the kids and leaves after his brief affair with a young harpist, sees a bag lady on a television documentary and recognizes her as Camille Malone--gifted pianist, fiery intellectual, and the love of Ford's college life. She told him, 20 years earlier, "Nobody ever forgets Camille Malone," and she's right (their first two sexual encounters are burned in his memory). Ford sets out to save her and find some answers for himself; along for the ride is Ford's born-again ex-con cousin Clarence Clayton, whose religious malapropisms strike a chord with Camille, who's teetering on the edge of madness. Interspersed flashbacks describe Ford's days as a student at the North Carolina conservatory at which he now teaches, surrounded by music and aching to be the Beethoven of his day, listening to Camille's dizzying, allusion-filled tirades at meetings of the Malone Society. (Old letters, from a box in his parents' attic, further illuminate his past.) In a controlled structure, Williams (The Song of Daniel, 1989; Slow Dance in Autumn, 1988) combines rollicking humor, sharp sweetness, artistic allusion, and humble wisdom in a seemingly effortless, virtuoso performance. ~--Michele Leber
Library Journal Review
A novel of midlife crises bursting with hu mor, nostalgia, philosophy, and more than a touch of madness. Ford Clayton, an instructor at a North Carolina music conservatory and a not-yet-successful composer, is in trouble. His affair with a younger woman has prompted his wife to leave with the children and move in with her sister. Ford sees a clip on TV about the homeless in New York; and there in rags is Camille Malone, his first love in college. She had been exciting, talented, weird, and always quoting obscure writ ers and philosophers. (As a child she had been locked in a closet for extended periods with the Encyclopedia Britannica.) Ford and she meet again, and she is wilder than ever; but the fatal attraction may still be there. Clarence, Ford's mad cousin who found God in jail, joins with Camille to create a new religion, and they plan to launch it at the conservatory where Ford teaches. In a series of flashbacks, the touching, sometimes religious experiences alternate with wildly imaginative sequences in the present. Wonderful dialog, musical lore, treatments of roads not taken, and some very funny characters appear in this offbeat but stylish and enjoyable novel. Perfect Timing is highly recommended.-- Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.