Eddie and Bella

Where have all the flower children gone? Wilson's second novel answers this question with the story of Eddie, a handsome, sensitive poet whose "spiritual" name is Raphael, and Bella, a head-turning beauty with glorious curly hair and a sharp wit. Ah, but time passes, and the myth fades fast. Eddie comes to realize that life with Bella is a little too real for his poetic self: dog hair in the drains, coke up her nose, flat tires, and unpaid bills. Bella is arrested for drunk driving. Eddie whips his outrageous poetry on another woman--and another and another. He leaves Bella, pretends she died, wears her I Ching coin around his neck, and proceeds to a life of disappointment and bad luck. Bella and her wise-mouthed daughters also live on the edge of despair as they trek from a kibbutz in Israel to Boston to New Orleans, never quite making it. We know it's inevitable that Eddie and Bella will meet again, but what happens on the way to that encounter makes great reading. Wilson's writing is soaked with patchouli oil; his characters are quirky, pitiful, funny, gorgeous, sad, and so human. In the end, the flower children may wither a bit, but they don't wilt.