The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living
By Martin Clark
Alfred A. Knopf
$24
345 pages

In most courtrooms in this country, the lack of an established motive is not fatal to a prosecutor’s case against the accused. On the other hand, failure to provide motive for the central character’s actions in a novel is the quickest way to kill a story. Novelist and Virginia Judge Martin Clark appears to have his venues confused and as a result his book, "The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living," is guilty of being a bad read.

The setup for "Mobile Home Living" is a request of North Carolina Circuit Court Judge Evers Wheeling by a mysterious, albino lady to buy into a scheme that requires the judge to set a drug defendant free. As payment, Wheeling is promised a share in $100,000 in hidden stolen money to which the defendant holds one of several clues. Wheeling agrees, setting off a cross-country treasure hunt that seems intended to be part Elmore Leonard cross/doublecross, part Carlos Castenda religious revelation, and part L. Frank Baum magical wish-granting.

The initial problem is in the setup. Author Clark can provide no credible reason why Wheeling should participate in the first place. Wheeling is independently wealthy, so his $25,000 cut of the deal is chickenfeed. He is bright and preternaturally suspicious, covering himself by such devices as requiring the albino woman to strip naked in a truck to prove that she is not wearing a wire. So why should the judge go forward with a plan that gains him little and threatens both his judicial career and his freedom from jail? Darned if we could figure. The book provides no credible answer.

That’s just the beginning of the difficulties.

The title itself is an unfortunate bait-and-switch. It leads a reader to expect a Carolina underclass beside-the-interstate setting, perhaps, hopefully, a modern-day "Tobacco Road." But while part of "Mobile Home Living"’s action actually takes place inside a double wide, the book’s mostly middle class inhabitants have very little to do with the types of folks who typically live in trailer parks. Alfred A. Knopf’s publicity department labels them "faux white trash cohorts," but it’s hard to equate doctors and lawyers and prep school graduates with what is commonly known as "white trash" simply because they drink liquor out of jelly jars or smoke dope under bug zappers.

The novel’s many structural difficulties overshadow the author’s sometimes-fine voice. Here and there the writing borders on the brilliant, particularly in its descriptions:

"Warren Dillon was a pale, white gibbon in a suit and vest. He had a small head, flat mouth, wide nose, pasty skin and a full black beard the same color and texture as his hair. The beard and hair were almost identical and circled his head, an unbroken, woolly ring that caused him to look like he had pushed his face through a tricycle tire. Dillon’s legs were long and spindly, his hands elongated, and his wrists on hinges. When he sat down in the witness stand, he moved his head and eyes in tiny starts and jumps so his head seemed to constantly chase after his eyes, a staccato pursuit going on all over his face."

But the good parts are few and far between. Besides problems with plotting, Clark seems to suffer from the Terry McMillan syndrome: i.e., a burning desire to reproduce dialogue as it actually occurs, rather than as it out to be shaped to further a scene or a story:

"You know...James Brown looks a lot like a sort of chubby swinger from one of those Planet of the Apes movies." ... "That’s unnatural." "What is?" ... "What you just said." ... "You’ve become an apologist for the Godfather of Soul?" "No. But that’s just what I was thinking. ... The same thing." "What were you thinking?" "That our man James Brown looks like a man in an ape outfit. Planet of the Apes. ... That’s just what I was thinking." ... "You weren’t really thinking that, were you?" "Yeah, I was."

Conversations like this go on for pages, which is all well and good for a court transcipt, but not for a novel.

There is one consolation, however. In the book-writing business, as opposed to criminal law, double jeapordy is permitted. Clark shows some promise in the development of interesting characters and off-the-wall adventures. Perhaps another effort would produce a more satisfying verdict.