Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Seventh novel by Tom Robbins. Tells the story of a CIA agent who is cursed to never touch the earth, leaving him to move about in a wheelchair or occasionally on stilts, and his quest to lift the curse. From the dust jacket:

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government, a pacifist who carries a gun, a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy, a cyberwhiz who hates computers, a robust bon vivant who can be as squeamish as any fop, a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior).

Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about Switters. He doesn't merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol.

Fans of Tom Robbins will recognize this feeble attempt at condensation as being woefully inadequate.

"Send in the clowns"

A quote that turns up in Tom Robbins' latest novel at least a dozen times. Most people do not take humor too seriously and neither does Robbins. He just tries to highlight its importance in theory and in practice. The book introduces the reader to a pyramid-head shaped tribesman of South America, art girls of Seattle, a bunch of excommunicated nuns of Syria and finally to Vatican City.

If 30+ men drooling after teenage girls bothers you at all, do not read this book. Switters, the main character carries the training bra of his 16-year-old step sister sniffing it regularly. But Robbins is all about breaking taboos... is this one of the few left?

"Send in the clowns"

This book is technically beautiful and as usual each sentence is carefully crafted. At one point Switters is in a wheelchair in a convent... could this reflect Robbins' own feelings of being constricted or living in a world full of rules? I strongly recommend reading this book about taking things less seriously. As the old parrot says:

"People of ze world, relax?"