Article: Desperate and happy in the disharmonious world: Lewis Nordan and the absurd.

IN LEWIS NORDAN'S LIGHTNING SONG, LEROY, ITS TWELVE-YEAR-OLD protagonist, returns home from a grocery, passing the house of The New People, a mysterious couple of newcomers who are recovering in the Deep South from the murder of their only son. To his surprise, the New Guy is wearing a war bonnet made of chicken feathers and the New Lady is dressed in a large pair of angel wings. The boy undertakes with them what they call a "grief therapy" (101), a ride in reverse in their big rusted Ford during which their mailbox is sheared off its post, the porch is destroyed, the refrigerator is turned off and, finally, the roof of the house collapses. Almost killed by a falling ...

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