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Lazlo grows up in a ramshackle house in Ontario that acquires the name “Bleak House” from a Dickens novel he discovers. Lazlo’s life is disrupted by the arrival of a thieving preacher who shows up one Saturday night to drink and play cards, bringing with him a beautiful young woman—his daughter, Lizzie. Before long, Lazlo falls under Lizzie’s spell and resolves to marry her. But the sadistic preacher—a man who boasted of wanting to poison a local pond so that all the frogs would die—learns of their budding romance and fires a gun at Lazlo, driving him away from home and on a journey that begins with a fortune teller named Mama Budda and ends in the Yukon, where he braves grizzly bears, the police, and unthinkable loss in the hopes of uncovering riches and winning the hand of Lizzie, whom he hasn’t seen in a number of years.
Holloway’s narrative unfolds like a country and western song from the 1950s. One can imagine it being sung by Claude King or Lefty Frizzell. The fortune teller’s prophecy and the question of whether the hero will find lasting love with Lizzie linger over the story, strategically pulling the reader forward. The author makes a commendable effort to incorporate classic works of literature, though this leads to some factual inaccuracies. Much more effective are the subtle stylistic echoes within the narrative of Herman Melville and Flannery O’Connor. For example, at a key moment, Lazlo sees an ominous green cloud hovering over the town, which calls to mind the evil turnip-shaped cloud in O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” In short, this is a lyrical, introspective, and exciting story with a strong human element.