Lawrence C. Melton
Published Novels
Henry Tuckahoe’s War on Washington
Commonwealth Books of Virginia, 2015. From the Columbia Review of Books & Film: “A multifaceted novel of satire and parody, with a solid core of gravitas; Washington DC is a central character – a living, breathing complex organism that fascinates us with its exterior splendor, astounds us with its great powers, and nauseates us with its foul excretions. Highly recommended!” To which I can add nothing. "Open these pages, Curious and Right-Minded Reader, and discover a Washington DC the existence of which you have, until now, only suspected. Here you will learn about morally and physically weak foundations, the true story of the Savings and Loan crisis, and the secret love lives of, not only politicians, but a Ph.D. student kept hostage in the bowels of the Library of Congress for his knowledge of ancient languages, the fetching legal counsel for the pro-choice Wombyn League, and a pregnant nun. Mix in the secrets of the long-lost Toughwaugh Papyrus, the interventions of a new ghost, real estate hanky-panky, and the inside scoop on Episcopal theology, and, voila! With Melton as your guide, you will thoroughly enjoy being enlightened." -Cheri Peters, Manager of Creative Writings Programs, Sewanee Writers’ Conference Henry Tuckahoe is available in electronic format on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Paperbacks can be ordered at Barnes & Noble, or from the publisher: Commonwealth Books of Virginia, 59 MacFarland Point Lane, Booth Bay Harbor, Maine 04538, http://www.commonwealthbooks.org/
The Tom Giles Novels
These sailing novels include adventure, love, and visits from the Devil himself. Father Tom Garman, a priest at our church, loved Fifty-Ton License, but then he is one of the main characters. These novels are published on-line and are available through Amazon. There are lots of good reviews on line, mostly written by my nieces. Thanks, Katie. Thanks, Beth. Fifty-Ton License Lee Shore Match Race (to be published in 2016) The Tom Giles novels are all available in electronic format on Amazon. Read them on your Kindle or any other computer.
The Absolute City
Kensal Press, 1985. Published only in the U.K and long out of print. Although The Absolute City was never formally reviewed, this appeared in the Washington Post Book World:
The only serious comic novel about Washington lawyers is so shameless in its below-the-belt-satire that – Americans in general and Washington lawyers in particular not being inclined to laugh at themselves – it has yet to be published in the United States. But it is available in Britain where they laugh at everybody. Consider this: A Washington law firm of great stature and national renown mistakenly offers a job to a mediocre student from an obscure law school. The student, lacking a sense of his own place, accepts the job. The fraud, avarice, lust, greed and the blatant manipulation of deep means to shallow ends eat through the oiled oak and pin-striped suits until everybody who is anybody, and some who aren’t, gets disbarred. The book is The Absolute City, by Lawrence Melton. The title is drawn from Spengler and may be too pretentious for your taste, as may the author’s underlying theme that somehow Washington Lawyers are responsible for the decline of Western Civilization. But you don’t have to worry about meaning and significance, or the author’s other peeves and eccentricities, as the plot romps farcically through the capital’s monoliths and bromides. So pick up a copy of The Absolute City from Harrod’s or Foyles when you next pass through London, or, if you’re not so lucky with your junket schedule, order a copy directly from the publisher, Kensal Press.
This appeareard in the “Recommended Reading” section of the Book World where readers were invited to send recommendtions of favorite books. The letter was signed by my friend Professor Bruce R. Smith of the Georgetown University English Department, but, of course, I wrote it myself. At least one Washington lawyer did pick up a copy at Foyles.
I also received some encouraging mail: Don V. Harris, Jr., a retired partner at Covington & Burling wrote: “I have just encountered and completed THE ABSOLUTE CITY and find nothing that John Grisham has and LC Melton lacks – except an American publisher!”
Patricia Moyes, one-time resident of Georgetown, D. C. and author of Black Widower, along with other mysteries, wrote: “I have just finished [The Absolute City], and I thoroughly enjoyed it – especially knowing Washington as well as I do. T o tell you the truth, I think it was much funnier and more to the point than BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, and has the infinite advantage of being the right length, instead of about four times too long!”
Professor Roger Groot wrote: “My favorite line was: ‘Lace on cellulite; it didn’t work.” Amazon still occasionally has second-hand copies of The Absolute City for sale. It’s really a very funny book. While driving back to South Carolina from a funeral in Alexandria last year, I was reading the Sunday Post to my wife. She remarked,”Nothing has changed. It’s still the Absolute City.” As usual, she’s right. I’ve never understood why it did not become a best seller. Who knows? Absolute City may make a comeback.
Work In Progress
Wounds of Memory (to be published in 2016).
Hamlet set in Columbia, South Carolina. Yes, I’m serious, Hamlet as in the play written by Wm. Shakespeare himself, set in present day Columbia, South Carolina. “But is there a pile of bodies at the end?” you ask. Well . . . read it and see.
The Name of the Train
Ross Thomas is one of my favorite authors. His Missionary Stew is one of my favorite books. The Name of the Train brings the characters Morgan Citron and Draper Haere, and their families, into the present where they find that agencies of the United States Government are once again waging war against each other, not in Tucamondo, but this time in Syria. I finished the first draft in six weeks, which is a personal best! Meanwhile, I’m starting to wonder what Artie Woo of Chinaman’s Chance is up to these days. If you are not a Ross Thomas fan, please get started.
Manuscripts In The Drawer
Arlington Cemetery
A down on his luck attorney stumbles across war crimes in Vietnam that had been hushed up by a prominent U. S. Senator. This novel found a real New York agent, but not a publisher, long ago, and then I lost interest in the Vietnam War. Who knows, it might be time to dust this one off and see if it jumps back to life like Henry Tuckahoe did.
The Virtuoso Pianist
A seventeen-year old boy is a virtuoso pianist. He lives in a small college town. His piano teacher is a frustrated bachelor who teaches at the local college. His father is a minister. But for the war and her decision to marry, his mother might have had a singing career. His sense of rhythm is weak, so his teacher makes him accompany a slightly older girl who plays the cello. Things go wrong and fall apart. And then things go right and come together. This novel drew kind remarks from friends, but built up a formidable pile of rejection slips from agents and publishers. I haven’t read it in over ten years. Time may come to open the box where I keep old manuscripts. Who knows? A snip here, a tweak there, a “mot juste” or two and . . . well, if you didn’t believe, you wouldn’t write, would you?
Full Fathom Five
A father believes his son was lost at sea. And then, strange radio broadcasts are heard along the Georgia coast. There are places in the Bahamas where low lying islands come and go with the tides and the result of a Nazi-sponsored genetic experiment survives there. He is intelligent, but he is lonely. This one started well, but somehow it got packed away with the move south in 1997 and I never finished it. Surely, that’s what retirement is for.
Work In Nubibus
Heir At Law
In 1750, a nineteen year old boy arrives in Charlestown from a sheltered upbringing in Gloucester to claim his uncle’s estate on the western fringe of the South Carolina wetlands. The court-appointed conservator has other ideas. This will be the beginning of a series that takes the hero, and his freed-slave companion, through the French and Indian wars, the Cherokee wars, the Revolution and into the age of the Underground Railroad. And, oh, did I mention that our hero is and remains a Tory? Well, there were Tories, you know. I mean someone’s blood had to refresh the tree of liberty. Besides, my mother always told me our Caldwell ancestors were Tories.