It is with some sadness that I came to the end of this book, discovered among the mounds of hardbacks to arrive at Deseret Industries the other day. Seeing the author's name, I wondered, could this be the Richard Scowcroft? Indeed it was.

Dudley Dean is a divorced father of a son, Tad, 17 years young, and just arrived for a brief visit with his dad. Tad has been living with his mother (Hannah) and step- father (Ashton), and has arrived in Salt Lake City for a visit with his natural father, an attempt to rediscover each other, to try to recover the lost years.

Oh, don't call Dudley a Mormon. He'll shout and complain, he is NOT a Mormon. Although from a vaguely Mormon family, the descendant of polygamists, Dudley has come to despise everything Mormonism stands for. He drinks, he sleeps around . . . well, you get the picture.

Dudley is also a professor, working on a book on the novelist George Meredith, whose book The Ordeal of Richard Feveral, seems to act as a model for this work. I've never read Meredith's book, so I'm at a disadvantage. Those who have read Meredith will likely appreciate the parallels more than I did.

Tad's visit begins a series of events that will turn Dudley's world upside-down. Among the many characters that populate this wild ride of a book are Bessie (Hannah's sister), all-suffering, true-blue Mormon housewife; the Ladies Alcorn, two old biddies just this side of senility and their lovely Elinore, 40 years old and virginal, as far as Dudley can figure; April, the younger woman, slinger of hash at the local greasy spoon, and current bed partner for Tad. It goes on and on.

Scowcroft is amazingly skilled in his descriptions of these odd characters. Here's a sample:

Try as I always had, castigate myself as I always did, I never succeeded in being happy to see Bessie.

Why? I asked myself. Why? I asked Hannah. One reason, I believe, was that when Bessie embraced all virtue as her own, she never bothered to consider why certain acts are virtuous, others not. She lived by precepts: Be kind, understanding, generous, forgiving. But what did these precepts mean to her? I don't think she knew. In her mindless benevolence, she could forgive anything, and in her soft gentle whine, she could tell of the many, many things she found to forgive. She was custard pudding without the vanilla bean -- good for one, possibly, but almost unpalatable. (p. 89)

Bessie's family is filled with eccentric and unpredictable characters. Some of the best scenes in the book take place at Bessie's home. Mormon to the eyebrows, the family wants nothing more than for Dudley and Tad to repent and return to the One True Church. And they will stop at nothing to make it happen.

The action in this book takes place over just a few days, those passing between Christmas and New Year. This is all the time father and son have to make that connection, to bridge the gap that distance, and alienated affections, has created. But given Dudley's dysfunctional psyche, and Tad's youth and inflated ego, how could this ever take place?

Scowcroft dives head first into the issue of sexuality and what he suggests is Mormonism's repressive attitude toward the natural use of the body. This is not to say that the Saints in this book are asexual. To the contrary, Bessie's son Fillmore -- erstwhile missionary, man of great prayer, debater of morals and decider of fates -- is also an earthy, sexually charged young man, whose sister must constantly warn him, "Get your mind out of the gutter!"

So what is the father's mission in all this mess? Dudley is convinced that, without his help, his son Tad will never find the right girl, never feel comfortable with the use of his body, never find his place in life. All of which, we should say, are extensions of Dudley's own failings. And in projecting these failings on his son, he only manages to drive Tad farther away.

In the process of leading his son through the twisted path we call life, Dudley succeeds only in hopelessly confounding his own life, as Tad peels away one layer after another of the facade that Dudley has come to call his existence.

Scowcroft is a gifted narrator, a wonderful story-teller. While this book won't be for everyone (his depiction of Mormon life will likely not sit well with some, and the frank sexuality, and often-blue language), many who appreciate good writing, a keen sense for character, an ability to keep the story moving, will enjoy the book.

"The Ordeal of Dudley Dean" is a marvelous tour-de-force, a comic opera told with grace and without subtlety. Yes, I'm sad that I'm at the end of the book. I'd like to know what happened to Tad. I'd like to discover if Dudley ever found himself. But maybe it doesn't matter. After all, how do Dudley's failings reflect my own? Perhaps I have nothing to offer any of them.

This is a wonderful book. If you can find a copy, get it, read it, love it.

------------------ 
Jeffrey Needle
jeff.needle@general.com 
or
jeffneedle@tns.net