Einstein's Taxidermy: Julia Elliott's "The New and Improved Romie Futch"
by Gregg Chadwick Julia Elliott's new novel, The New and Improved Romie Futch , takes us on a Southern adventure that seems inspired by the absurdly picaresque world of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces , the cyber/ historic cosmography of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, the dangerous science of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , the obsessive hunt of Herman Melville's Moby Dick , and the eerily foreboding scape of Don De Lillo's White Noise, blended with the environmental warning of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, all played to a soundtrack by the pioneering electronica musician Delia Derbyshire. Romie Futch lives in an alternative yet still contemporary South Carolina, where hipsters seem to have swarmed South from Brooklyn and East from Portland to mingle and clash with characters that still haven't moved far from their High School glory days. Romie Futch is one of these down at the heels locals. Romie's ex-wife haunts his d...