Total View of Taftly by Scott Morris, Scott Morris

Publishers Weekly

Aiming to juxtapose erudite narration with ignorant characters, Morris's earnest novel of Southern silliness and bawdy, boozy escapades never quite manages to make it off the bar stool. Thirtyish Taftly Harper is the pitiful descendant of local heroes--his great-grandfather built the local college and his granddaddy built the bank. Taftly himself has just shed the weight that branded him a fat loser. Also saddled with psychosexual hang-ups (the legacy of his recently deceased fastidious mother) and painful memories of his ex-girlfriend Ruby, Taftly is on a mission to find love. He thinks he's got a chance when he saves the attractive Fay Davis from her abusive common-law husband, but she marries a doctor. As a parting gesture, Fay removes her dentures and services Taftly--a sexual favor (he subsequently learns) that has earned her notoriety. Rejected and now obsessed with the notion that his teeth are clairvoyant, Taftly buys property outside of town and becomes acquainted with bumbling handyman Dennis Jolly, who claims to have been abducted by space aliens. Torturing himself with thoughts of Fay, Taftly is driven to outcries of anguish beneath the stars. Dennis overhears these soul-searching soliloquies, records them and aspires to become Taftly's Boswell. When Taftly discovers Dennis marketing the tapes as "Lectures from Taftly Harper on God and Many Other Great Thinkers," he goes ballistic. Morris renders his characters as redneck buffoons striving for philosophical loftiness--which, added to the story's rambling plot and bizarre tone, conspire to make Taftly's adventure an incoherent, alienating whirlwind. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

National Review - Christopher Rapp

With The Total View of Taftly, Morris has managed a rare feat-a novel that is at once bawdy and tender, probing, and wise.

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