In Person
Fri., Aug. 21, 1998
Jon Ferguson is taller than you might expect. Sure, reading something about him called "About the Author" you see he coaches in the Switzerland pro-basketball league, but still, he's taller than most authors should be. He has deep-set eyes and a face well-crinkled with laugh lines. He is an easy talker, smooth and relaxed, and he is nothing like the dry philosophy professor I expected after reading his latest novel, Farley's Jewel (Cinco Punto Press, $11.95 paper).
Larry Farley is a philosophy professor on sabbatical. Thrown out of his house by his wife for his philandering ways, he finds solace in his thoughts, his golf game, an ex-student, and Freda, his dog. Then he finds out his mother is dying and has Alzheimer's, and the rest of his tale takes place in Utah, at her home, at her bedside, and at the Hearts and Hands rest home. He lives his life apart from his wife and he watches the mental decay of the mother he knew as his story unfolds, told in questions - What is thinking made of? Is death the opposite of life? Is there anything holier than one's mother? - questions and flashbacks to a Metaphysics intro class he once taught.
To his students, he was an exciting, unpredictable professor, and Ferguson devotes sections of his novel to the lectures Farley gave, and it is these sections and the questions, constant questions, that made me suspect Ferguson would be dry, even though his character, Farley, is not.
I was wrong and glad for it. Ferguson read three sections from his novel, but what interested me most were the stories he told. The stories and his easy manner as he answered questions and commented cogently on his novel and his own thoughts. The book is well-written and clean - if a little too philosophical for my tastes. I would be even more interested in reading his collection of essays (Thus Spoke Schmaltz) published in Switzerland and, unfortunately, in French - sports essays akin to MFK Fisher's food essays or Click and Clack's "Car Talk," dealing more with life and love than the I-formation or double-glazed pork or rack and pinion steering. Overall, Farley's Jewel might not be a diamond or an emerald, but it is well worth the read, and should be read carefully, for its luster is hidden in a simple and straightforward prose style. As for the jewel itself, Ferguson told us what Farley's jewel was, but I'll leave that for you to figure out.- Manuel Gonzales
