Newspaper Article

MICHAEL DIRDA

Dirda, Michael

2000

Overview

There is a soupcon of plot, of course. The hero, Delancey, a journalist for the East Hampton Star, travels to Washington to cover (and proselytize for) environmental issues while his lover, Phil, is away in Europe. In our fair city he encounters various old and new friends, several familiar to readers of [James] McCourt's highly praised earlier books (Time Remaining, Kaye Wayfaring in \"Avenged\", Mawrdew Czgowchwz). All of these \"characters\" are, practically speaking, gay archetypes: the read-everything writer O'Maurigan; the transvestite Odette O'Doyle (who becomes Maud MacGown); lesbian diva Vana Sprezza; roman-a-clef millionaire Max Harrington and his wife, Anastasia; Sen. John Galt (named after the Ayn Rand hero); a compliant Hill page called Rain with a deep interest in congress (sexual and legislative); and the outrageously subversive Ornette, educated at Boston Latin School and the University of Virginia, now a master of Ebonics, classical learning and tent-revival, place-your-hands-on- the radio oratory. His declamatory riffs on black stereotypes and white prejudices deliberately alternate shock with shuck: In fact, most of Delancey's Way grab-bags together party talk, monologues and playlets about government, D.C. life, opera, gay mores, Bill Clinton (referred to as POTUS -- President of The United States), money, sex, race, Key West, television and political conspiracy. One possible subtitle for this romp, we learn, could be an \"Investigation into the Allegorical Nature of the American Republic\" -- though Delancey himself says the book resembles \"a big crowded crosstown bus -- in which he can't get anybody to move to the back.\" Throughout, the novel moves from one razzle-dazzle set piece to the next, starting with Ornette's 15-page rant at the Cosmos Club about black and white sexual politics: Yowza. Periodically, we hear from various walk-ons that Christo may wrap the Washington Monument in a giant condom. At one especially surrealist moment, Delancey recruits the Simple City Crew to dress up as gondoliers -- rowing crews -- for a Venetian-style festival on the Potomac. Freshman congressmen are imagined wearing propeller beanies. Delancey himself ends up starring in his own TV program, \"The Delancey Retort\" -- commedia dell'arte meets the McLaughlin Group.

• Publisher: WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post
• Subject: Books-titles / Delancey's Way / McCourt, James / Novels