Word: leigh
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...maniacs in Halloween and Prom Night, deposited by leprous spooks into The Fog bank, and now manhandled by a psycho transsexual on a Terror Train, Curtis is the new virgin queen of shivers. No-nonsense intelligence shines through her friendly, angular, leonine face (a gift from her mother, Janet Leigh, who pioneered the modern horror trend 20 years ago by taking a bloodbath in Psycho). Thus when she flees into a dark closet or abandoned sleeping car-where, of course, the evil one waits, knife at the ready-she must have a logical reason. She does: to act as avatar...
Subtitled "A Sort of a Love Story," Still Life With Woodpecker tangentially concerns itself with the romantic woes of Leigh-Cheri Furstenberg-Barcelona, a princess from some made-up nation who resides in exile in Seattle with her parents. Having concluded that World Causes lend meaning and satisfaction to life (love had given her only an abortion and a miscarriage), Leigh-Cheri journies to Maui to attend the Geo-Therapy Care Fest, where she meets the other mouthpiece for Robins's thoughts, Bernard Mickey Wrangle, alias the Woodpecker. Wrangle, who has come to Maui to bomb the Fest, teaches...
After the authorities nab Bernard Mickey and throw him in jail, Leigh-Cheri sits in her room for half a year and discovers the meaning of life by staring at a pack of Camel cigarettes. She promises to marry an Arab Sheik, provided he builds her a pyramid. The Woodpecker eventually gets out of the clink, meets her in the pyramid and reiterates the dilemma of transitory love. The sheik bombs the pyramid. The princess and the frog go deaf and, maybe, learn to make love stay. They live happily ever after...
Earlier passages hint at what Robbins may be trying to get at during the epilogue. Consider one of the sermonettes Woodpecker delivers to Leigh-Cheri...
Robbins has conceived passage after passage of insights like this, most of them capped off by similes that reel under the weight of overwriting. Unable to resist the opportunity to sneak in a comparison wherever it will or will not fit, Robbins allows himself to write these words: "Leigh-Cheri took a swig from the bottle.... She felt as if she were Saturday night television and there were an orchestra up her nose...