Word: sloan
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...lunch last Saturday to talk about his work, and it quickly became apparent that James Park Sloan, like his newest book, is exceedingly deceptive in appearance. The volume, a slim work, is a structural gem, finely conceived, and aptly polished. Likewise, the author's unhurried, Southern manner conceals a dynamic intellectual personality and an impassioned conversationalist...
...Sloan describes his latest work as an attempt to explore the "question of connection between planes of reality"--an experiment in the non-linear story popularized by John Barth. In fact, the book is nothing less than a thorough annihilation of the concept of rationality, a "stoic" work in the very audicity with which it posits the insanity of normalcy...
...Sloan sees a continuity between the narrative philosophy of Comrade V., and his first highly successful effort War Games. That book, published in 1971, has already earned significant critical acclaim, most recently netting its young author the Ellen McPhaul Prize. War Games is the tale of a quixotic young gentleman who leaves Harvard for the fields of Viet Nam to take "the military interlude required of every complete and cultured man." The bizarre ontological exploration of Comrade V. is thus, in a sense, an extension of the disillusionment of the protagonist of the first novel...
...author himself entered Harvard in 1961, a self-styled intellectual prodigy (he was quite firmly convinced) from Clinton, South Carolina. His father happens to be mayor of the town and a singularly reactionary political soul. Sloan conceeds that his inquiries with respect to God and the implications of his non-existence might be seen in light of his struggle to come to terms with his family and regional background...
...University, he took a leave and did a tour of service in Viet Nam. Thus his first fictional effort was partially autobiographical--the synthesis of his combat experience in Southeast Asia and subsequent exposure to the politics of protest upon returning to Cambridge in 1967. According to Sloan, the nameless hero of his first book does not choose to take up the family tradition and enter politics upon his return from Viet Nam, nor does he completely eschew identification with issues of social concern. Above all, he turns inward for significance...