SECTION: Southern California Living; Part 5; Page 3; Features Desk

LENGTH: 796 words

HEADLINE:
Book Review;
Quirky Southern Clan Caught in Tangle of Hexes and Seductions

BYLINE: BERNADETTE MURPHY, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

BODY:
DEEP IN THE SHADE OF PARADISE

A Novel

By John Dufresne

W.W. Norton

416 pages; $25.95

*

"There's always at least two stories, the one you set out to tell and the one you discover along the way; the one you know about, the one you don't," says the narrator in John Dufresne's absolute lark of a novel, "Deep in the Shade of Paradise," a sequel to his 1994 debut "Louisiana Power & Light."

Readers who embark on this bizarre, hilarious and totally hypnotic journey may never be sure which of the stories Dufresne manages to tell, but by the time they're knee-deep in the swamp of his imagination, they won't give much of a hoot either way.

"Deep in the Shade of Paradise" takes on the premise of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in pungent Cajun-Creole fashion. Set in the Louisiana town of Shiver-de-Freeze--a corruption of the French cheval de frise--on the family plantation of Paradise, the stage is set for the wedding of Ariane Thevenot and Grisham Loudermilk. All of the family have gathered, including Boudou Fontana (first name rhymes with "Who do"). The boy is the last of the Fontana clan, all of whom have been victims of a persistent hex, a curse Boudou hopes to end. So well-known, in fact, is the curse that the local museum features a display of objects related to the demise of the Fontana lineage.

Boudou's great-uncle Royce Birdsong, meanwhile, is suffering from Alzheimer's; Boudou, who has a photographic memory, takes over the job of remembering for Royce.

As pre-wedding festivities get underway, Royce's bachelor son Adlai falls in love with the bride-to-be and tries to change the course of the planned nuptials, just as the groom is seducing Miranda Ferry in her Airstream trailer.

Throughout this quirky caprice of a tale, oddball characters mill around, shedding a surreal light on such themes as the purpose of memory, the importance of family, the difficulties of love, the nonsense of destiny and the role of fidelity.

There's Tous-les-Deux, conjoined female twins who develop a crush on Boudou; the priest who's in love with the bride-to-be's mother and rethinking his commitment to celibacy; Underwood Abdelnour, the Lecture Man, who will come to your gathering and liven things up with the topic of your choice, including "If Immanuel Kant, then Genghis Khan"; Alvin Lee, second cousin to Boudou, a polygamous Southern preacher whose congregation dresses in early 1970s tie-dye, Nehru jackets and love beads and listens to Marvin Gaye on portable eight-track players; and Earlene deBastrop Fontana, Boudou's country-songwriting mother, who can't get over the loss of her husband, Billy Wayne Fontana.

Billy Wayne died as part of the Fontana curse on the day Boudou was conceived. Adding to this lineup are scores of walk-on characters who keep readers on their feet and in the thrall of the eccentric narrative, if not exactly sure where (or why) things are unfolding as they are.

Amid all these comings and goings, we're treated to off-the-wall narrator ponderings on philosophy, great books and linguistic theory, along with the odd slam on the New York literary establishment and ivory-tower academics. There's lots of "Jesus Saved Me, Amen!" talk, which Dufresne pushes to its sidesplitting limit.

(One religious convention features snake-handling congregants, spiritually inspired messages for answering machines and a Witness Panty Hose booth).

Many nods to the discerning reader are buried amid this hoopla, such as when Adlai tries to convince Ariane to elope with him: "Sure we'll have a lot of explaining to do," he tells her, "but the only people that really matter are kin, and blood is thicker than irony...." Dufresne is not afraid to use postmodern strategies to get his story across, and he leans heavily on the David Foster Wallace tradition of lengthy end notes to give readers off-kilter pieces of the tale that don't quite fit in this far-from-straightforward narrative.

Though Dufresne's work has been compared to that of William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor and other Southern denizens, don't take the similarities too seriously. This is not the kind of highbrow literature up for discussion in college classrooms.

His work is closer to the over-the-top philosophical antics of Tom Robbins than anything you'd encounter in an American literature course.

In many ways, though, that is to Dufresne's benefit. "Deep in the Shade of Paradise" is a book that's perfect for losing yourself in, for drifting off and forgetting all about the paperwork you need to gather for tax-filing day, the chores around the house calling for your attention and the grass you're supposed to be mowing.

This is one to sweep you away to a gloriously off-center notion of paradise.