Still Life with Woodpecker

Title: Still Life with Woodpecker

Author: Tom Robbins

Pages: 288

Genre: Fiction, Humor

Grade: B+

Synopsis: Princess Leigh-Cheri, a red-headed, vegetarian lives with her exiled royal parents in Seattle.  The liberal Leigh-Cheri travels to Hawaii with Gulietta, her family's last loyal servant, to go to the CareFest gathering where her idol Ralph Nader will be speaking.  While there she meets Bernard Mickey Wrangle, who is an outlaw bomber that has been running from the law for decades.  After Bernard (also known as the woodpecker) sets off a bomb at the CareFest, Leigh-Cheri places him under a citizen's arrest, before falling in love with him.

My Review: This is without a doubt one of the strangest books that I have ever read, but I really enjoyed it. I think Alison was sick of me reading it because I often broke out into laughter while reading.  Aside from the theme that redheads are from another planet, I'm not sure I can do this book any justice by attempting to describe it any further.

Disclaimer: There is some love-making and other descriptions of an adult nature.

From the Book: "(Pg. 8) Once, Princess Leigh-Cheri used a papal candlestick for the purpose of self-gratification. She had hoped that at the appropriate moment she might be visited by either the Lamb or the Beast, be, as usual, only Ralph Nader attended her."

"(Pg. 52) To Gulietta, indoor plumbing was the devil's device. Of all the follies of the modern world, that one struck her as the most unnecessary. There was something unnatural, foolish, and a little filthy about going indoors. Ont he European estates where she was reared, it was common practice for servant girls to lift their skirts outside. Gulietta had seen no reason to alter her habits in Seattle. Despite the difficulty there of doing one's natural duty without being rained upon or receiving from a blackberry bramble a bite as sharp as hemorrhoids, she felt comfortable--happy, even--when she could squat in fresh air. Besides, it was an opportune way to spy frogs."