Frankland A Novel Author:James Whorton With his critically acclaimed first novel, Approximately Heaven, James Whorton, Jr., introduced readers to his droll, poignant, and unforgettable brand of humor. Now, Whorton is back with a wry and ribald tale in the rich tradition of John Kennedy Toole and Walker Percy. Featuring an oddball hero whose book smarts greatly eclipse his inte... more »rpersonal skills, Frankland captures the down-home wisdom that can often be found only in the small Southern towns of which Whorton writes so captivatingly. John H. Tolley is a socially awkward yet passionate young man who technically never graduated from college, but whose greatest ambition is to become a bow tie-wearing, pipe-smoking historian. For now, all John has in his quest to penetrate the Ivory Tower is a treasured tweed jacket, a tenacity that often tends towards obsessive compulsion, and a hot lead -- he has reason to believe that some potentially scandalous lost papers of Andrew Johnson have been preserved by an heir in Tennessee. With visions of writing a new career-making biography on the often maligned (and even more often ignored) seventeenth president, John heads down to East Tennessee, the area that the outspoken Johnson once proposed splitting off into its own separate state called Frankland. As determined as John is to get down to bookish pursuits upon his arrival, distractions abound in the forms of living people: Van Brun, the gravy-voiced academic in desperate need of a pedicure; McBain, the greens-eating New York newswoman; Boo Price, the neurotic ex-con; and Dweena, the brown-eyed, shy, and stoic mail carrier who may or may not know she's near the center of a clandestine scheme to bring a state lottery to Tennessee. Holed up in a town with folks as quirky as he is, John is destined to find answers, although not necessarily the ones that he set out to uncover. Native and newcomer, highbrow and hillbilly cross paths and tangle riotously in this offbeat, provocative, and at times hilarious second novel. Frankland is further proof of James Whorton's vast literary talent.« less