BENEATH THE COYOTE HILLS

Fiction

BENEATH THE COYOTE HILLS
By William Luvaas
238 pp. Spuyten Duyvil 

Reviewed by David E. Hoekenga, M.D.

Our hero is a writer named Thomas Aristophanus, and he has “spells.” Tommy lives in an olive grove outside the town of Hamlet, a scrappy burg in the high desert of Southern California.

It is a down-at-the heels community peopled by social security retirees living in run-down trailers inherited from former retirees who died in them, ex-cons and sexual predators, evangelical shouters (a church on every corner) , recyclable collectors, and nutcase old farts tooting around in golf carts decked out with American flags. Diabetic tubbies trip out of Walmart pushing shopping carts full of cheap carbs and gizmos from China. How can they afford all that shit? Gun nuts blast holes in the mudstone cliffs in the wash below my place or take aim at the cross atop the ‘The First Church of the One True Christ,’ modeled on the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. They dodged through the sagebrush in cammo gear, assault weapons at the ready, hunting “feds.” Scares hells out of me when they invade my grove. I’ve fashioned a suit of palmetto fronds, a raffia affair, which I clamber into when they come, blending so seamlessly with the landscape that the bastards blend right past me, unaware I am even there.

Thomas creates the fictional character V. C. Hofstatter, or Volt. Most writers can control their characters, but Volt comes right of the pages of Beneath the Coyote Hills and does battle with his creator.

Thomas is unlucky in love. He meets a girl named Karma, who suggests that they make soapstone pipes. The soft stone would be a natural insulator, she says. They sell faster than they can make them.  A guy named Woody joins the business, and Thomas catches him and Karma having sex one day. Karma says, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, it just happened.” Woody runs away with all the money and leaves Tommy with all the bills.

Next, Cleopatra wanders into his grove.  “So do you want to ball me?” Cleo said. She stands up abruptly and sheds her clothes. She straddles him and they rollover and over in the hard pack, ignoring scorpions and fire ants. She sigh, “That’s one of the best fucks I ever had,” she says with a sigh. “And the most painful.”

Then Thomas meets Deena at the Food Processing Association convention in Las Vegas. She gets pregnant, so they got hitched. Tommy says, “Those were the best days of my life: good job. happy marriage, blessed by a son, a new house far beyond anything we could have imagined owning...” Then Tommy’s son developes two kinds of inoperable bone cancer and dies. Insurance doesn’t cover their massive medical bills. Then Volt, a financial wizard, takes his house!

Thomas donates a kidney for money in Kosovo and almost dies from it, but when he gets home the packet of “money” turns out to be neatly stacked pieces tied of green paper. 

Thomas Aristophanus must also battle his abusive father, who returns from the dead. Tommy does a valiant job of fighting against all the forces arrayed against him. This book is endlessly inventive, and seriously explores the role of predetermination versus chance in a person’s lives.

This is a crazy, disorienting little book, but a fun read.