Carnival of Cannibals: A Modern Pastoral

Jeri Singleton's hard work and intellect have brought her close to her dream of medical school, but at the cost of her young marriage. Vulnerable and alone, Jeri meets Ted Johnston, a sad and mysterious stranger who has abandoned the urban lifestyle to which she aspires. Ted has succeeded in the technological world Jeri values, yet he has lost his faith in science and technology. Drawn together irresistibly across a lonely ski slope, Ted and Jeri begin a quiet romance in the snow muted mountains of Colorado and quickly fall deeply in love.

Eager to experience Carnival, Jeri convinces Ted to join a group of libertine strangers on a Mardi Gras trip to New Orleans. As their love matures, with the parties and parades of carnival cascading around them, they begin making plans for a lifetime together. But they are unaware that the emotionless gears of the modern world are grinding inevitably closer to them.

Reminiscent of Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, James J. Houts takes their stylistic conventions one step further in a mesmerizing depiction of the consequences of modern, technological life. Rich in detail with expertly developed characters, Carnival of Cannibals is a poignant and effecting novel of extraordinary depth and relevance.

Writers since Theocritus and Virgil have explored the conflict between art (now science) and nature. In "The Tempest," William Shakespeare placed Prospero, an accomplished scientist with command over the elemental powers, into the wilderness of an undiscovered island. Humanity's inherent dichotomy between the desire for technology and the love of nature is an enduring theme of Western literature. Never has the pastoral theme been more topical than in a world of nuclear wastes, ozone holes, Saturday night specials and the addiction of millions to refined drugs. Carnival of Cannibals brings the pastoral theme to our contemporary world.